


More to Living Than Being Alive

by procrastin8or951



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Allergies, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Kirk, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-05 20:02:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6721033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procrastin8or951/pseuds/procrastin8or951
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kirk's life has always been one crisis after another, starting from the day he was born. He should've known that even a black hole couldn't absorb that. Missing scenes after the Narada incident. Kirk is falling apart, can Bones and Spock save him in time?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The hull was cracked, their warp core was in approximately a trillion little bits in the middle of a black hole, engineering was severely understaffed, everyone on the ship was beyond exhausted, and no one was entirely sure how many of their crew was dead but they knew it had to be a lot. 

There had been one heartbeat’s worth of relief when the Narada succumbed to overwhelming gravity and sank into the black hole, followed by an additional huge surge of adrenaline as the Enterprise almost followed. Then another half second of calm before the damage reports began to flood in. 

Kirk had flung himself into the Captain’s chair, pounded the appropriate button with one fist and began firing off orders, not the least of which was to his current bridge crew to leave and get at least eight hours of sleep before they returned at the time of what would have been their normal shift if this ship had been running on any type of regular schedule. 

Beta shift filed in immediately and began to work. They were a much quieter bunch than alpha shift, possibly because they hadn’t been in charge when the Enterprise had gone through hell and back and didn’t have the well-earned overconfidence that came with that. As Scotty gave a long and rambling report through the communicator, Kirk glanced around the bridge and realized he didn’t know a single one of these people. Nevertheless, they worked well enough, the new pilot heeding his orders to avoid the debris as he discussed with Scotty how in the hell they intended to get back to Earth with no warp core and a severely crippled sublight system. 

In a moment between discussing repairs with Scotty, he had ordered a couple of ensigns to figure out exactly how many people were actually dead, and who they were, so their families could be notified. It was a difficult task, considering that most of them died by being sucked into space, and it was typically extremely hard to identify people without a body, but the ensigns assured him they could figure it out. 

His PADD chirped every couple of seconds with another report he needed to sign, another repair order he needed to authorize, and there was an annoying blinking light that reminded him that no one had completed a Captain’s log possibly since he had assumed the role of captain. He slumped in his chair, the enormity of it all overwhelming him for a moment. The people who died, the people who were injured, the planets that were destroyed, the possibility that he had sent the Narada through a wormhole to a different time to be someone else’s problem.

Kirk could hear his pulse, and not only could he hear it, but he could feel it, just behind his eyes, in the ribs he was sure were broken, in his hand he knew was rebroken, in the scrapes and contusions and general lack of wholeness about his entire body. Uncomfortably, his pulse was matching that little blinking light and the chirps of his PADD, and each syllable Scotty rambled in his ear. He made a mental note to go see Bones as soon as he got the chance. Despite what Bones seemed to think, he did not have a death wish, nor did he enjoy pain, nor did he regard himself as unimportant. But there was often something just a little more important. 

“Captain, we are being hailed by Star Fleet,” an ensign in blue called out, and Kirk started. 

“Patch them through,” he said, clearing his throat and straightening up in his chair, wincing as he did so. 

The admiral onscreen did not look at all pleased as he stared down at Kirk. After a long, uncomfortable moment, Kirk cleared his throat. 

“Acting Captain James Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise,” he identified. “The war criminal known as Nero has been defeated, and we are undergoing repairs in order to return to Earth. Sir."

The man continued to stare at him. Kirk shifted uncomfortably, unsure of what else to say. Finally, the man spoke. 

“What is the condition of Captain Pike?” 

“Captain Pike remains in surgery, in what I understand to be stable but critical condition, sir.”

“Captain Kirk, what is the estimate of your earliest arrival back at Earth?” 

“Sir, traveling at sublight, we should reach Earth in no less than two weeks, once repairs have been made. I estimate the repairs will take an additional 48 hours.” Kirk cleared his throat again, uncomfortable with the hoarseness apparent in his voice. 

“Very well. You are to report to Star Fleet upon your return for a debriefing and hearing.” The transmission ended abruptly. Kirk squirmed uncomfortably, causing further wincing, before deciding his body obviously just wanted to be still. Sighing, he returned to his PADD, signing at least a dozen more reports before Scotty called with an update that took about as long as the repair he was reporting on, and Kirk wanted to ask him to submit his reports in writing from now on to save time, but he didn’t because he liked Scotty. 

“Mr. Scott,” he broke in. “How long until the repair is finished?” 

“At least two days, sir,” Scott replied. “Hope not more than that.” 

“Thank you, Mr. Scott. Kirk out.” He punched the button again. It hurt his hand. 

He jabbed a couple buttons on his PADD to increase text size. He blinked forcefully and plowed through six more reports, signing off on each, incredibly grateful that his crew seemed so competent. He shivered. It was cold on the bridge, and he wasn’t sure why. He didn’t recall it having been so cold before and he briefly entertained the thought that it might have something to do with the cracked hull, but a cursory glance around at the other people on the bridge indicated that this was actually normal. 

He suppressed another shiver and focused on the reports, his head pounding as he skimmed yet another repair request, forcing himself not to dwell on the emptiness of space, on the thought that that emptiness is what now took the place of Vulcan, had almost taken the place of Earth. 

By the time he looked up, his bridge crew was back. He hadn’t noticed beta shift leaving, and he found it disorienting how silently people had traded places, how seamlessly they all seemed to work when he was struggling to hit the correct buttons on his PADD and had twice been forced to retract a report because he had accidentally declined to authorize instead of authorizing, because the buttons were too damn small and his hand hurt a little too much. 

“Captain.” Kirk turned, craning his neck awkwardly upward to see Spock’s face where he stood at the arm of his chair. 

“What can I do for you, Mr. Spock?” he tried to ask, but his voice barely came out, and that little effort made his throat burn. He coughed forcefully to restore his voice, and his vision went white as the marrow of his ribs turned to magma. 

“Mr. Spock,” he managed, as his vision cleared. 

“Due to your appearance, I am given to believe you have not rested following our return from the Narada, and it was my impression that you had not had sleep for many hours prior to that expedition.” Spock’s face didn’t even seem to move as he talked, and Kirk wasn’t sure what exactly Spock was trying to communicate at this moment besides making a somewhat insulting observation of his general appearance. He glanced down at his black shirt, noting the dirt and the darker splotches that were probably blood, and noting how badly it hurt his neck to look down like that. 

“Captain, perhaps it would be wise for you to-” 

“Captain, if yeh have a moment, I could use another set of eyes in engineering,” Scotty said through the communicator. 

Kirk hit the button, wincing again as his hand throbbed. “I’ll be right there.” He glanced up at Spock. “Can this wait until later, Mr. Spock?” 

Without waiting for an answer, he pushed himself from his chair, but his head didn’t take kindly to the change in altitude, nor did his ribs like being jostled, and his hand didn’t like being used, and all of a sudden his knees were buckling as black flooded his vision and he could hear a couple of gasps, and he felt hands catch him and they did it as gently as they could, he was sure, but damn it all, everything in his body hurt and it hurt more when it was touched. 

Kirk blinked rapidly, trying to clear the dark spots from his vision, the glaring white of the bridge bursting through and making his eyes hurt and his stomach turn. He found himself on the floor, halfway sitting up, propped against his chair, one leg folded awkwardly beneath him. 

“Lieutenant Uhura, please call down to medical and ask them to bring up a stretcher,” Spock called, and Kirk shook his head. 

“No, Lieutenant, do not ask for a stretcher. I can walk,” he commanded. Spock quirked one eyebrow at him, but did not press the issue, dropping his hands from Kirk’s shoulders to his wrist, the left one, the one that didn’t hurt, to find his pulse. Kirk shook him off and made to stand once more, and Spock immediately hovered at his side, reaching out to steady him as he wobbled. 

“Sulu, you have the conn,” Kirk muttered, realizing with dismay that Spock intended to follow him down to sickbay. 

“Yes, Captain,” Sulu replied, meeting his eyes, and Kirk nodded to him, grateful that he wasn’t going to comment on that little spell. 

They reached the lift and Kirk tightly grabbed one of the handles and leaned heavily on the wall, exhausted from the effort of walking that far. He glanced over at Spock, feeling the Vulcan’s gaze boring into him. 

“Spock,” he rasped, and, coughing once more, he almost collapsed again, but Spock caught him by a bicep and supported him. “Spock, what I said about your mother, I was out of line. I’m sorry.” He forced the words out, even as his throat ached and the walls of the lift and the door that had opened at some point without his noticing danced before his eyes. 

“You were correct to take command,” Spock said. “In my emotionally compromised state, I failed to realize I was unfit to captain this vessel.” He paused. “Though your methods were perhaps questionable, I believe in this instance, the ends justified the means.” 

Kirk nodded, suddenly exhausted, unable to express the guilt and the fear and the uncertainty. He allowed Spock to support him down the short hallway to medical, allowed himself to be deposited on a biobed, but when a cadet approached him with a tricorder, he balked. 

“I need Dr. McCoy,” he stated in the most commanding voice he could muster. 

“Dr. McCoy is still in surgery with Captain Pike. I’d be happy to help you,” the cadet said, not even meeting his eyes, but watching the tricorder intently as he waved it over Kirk. 

“Then I’ll wait for him to finish surgery,” Kirk insisted, pushing the tricorder away. “I have allergies –”

“Your blood pressure is extremely low,” the cadet interrupted. “And your pulse is pretty weak. There really isn’t time to wait.”

Kirk looked at Spock imploringly. “I need McCoy. Please. Just tell him it’s me, he’ll come.” 

Spock nodded, turning on his heel and walking away quickly. 

Kirk turned his attention back to the cadet, just in time to see the flash of a hypo before he felt the sting in his neck, just before he felt the burning sensation spreading through his veins. 

“What was that?” he gasped, hand at his neck, his vision darkening around the edges as he looked frantically for Bones. 

“Just a painkiller,” the cadet said. “You’ve got broken ribs and all kinds of other damage, I just thought –”

“I’m…allergic…” Kirk ground out, both fists clenching as he struggled to breathe, as the alarms of the bed started to blare, as the cadet met his eyes and he saw the panic and the uncertainty written on his face, as his vision darkened further until all he could see was a blurred motion as the cadet was pushed out of the way, as two people in blue crowded his bedside, a cool hand on his head, orders barked in a thick southern accent, and it was Bones, he was there, and Kirk struggled one more second for air before submitting himself to the dark.


	2. Chapter Two

“Did you even go to medical school?” McCoy spat, taking a step closer to the cadet in order to look even further down at him. 

“Of course,” the young man said defensively, and his obvious irritation made McCoy all the more furious. 

“Perhaps you missed a day, like say, the first one, where they tell you to read the damn history before you go dumping chemicals in a person’s body?” 

“I didn’t have the history available, and there wasn’t time –”

_The alarms wailed, the screen of the biobed flashing red, and McCoy lunged forward, shoving the cadet toward the foot of the bed, hearing the metallic bounce of the hypospray three times on the floor as it fell from the man’s hand, even as the alarms continued to scream, and he knew immediately what had happened. McCoy wrenched the drawer of the crash cart open, and without looking grabbed what he knew he needed: the two hyposprays and the intubation tube. But even as Kirk’s eyes fluttered closed, as blue tinged his lips, he paused and read the side of the hypo, to be absolutely certain._

_First do no harm._

“Well, you have plenty of time now,” McCoy snapped. “You’re on probation, pending further notice.” 

“But sir,” the cadet argued, “given the outcome, this punishment seems severe.” 

_McCoy handed the hypos to the nurse who delivered them in rapid succession as he tipped Jim’s head back, taking a breath before he threaded the tube into the trachea and hooked up the bag, pumping three artificial breaths for Jim before he allowed himself to exhale._

“Given the possible outcome, you’re lucky all I’m doing is suspending you. Your sorry ass was the reason Jim Kirk almost died today, and if I hadn’t stepped in, the outcome wouldn’t have been so favorable.” McCoy could feel the vein at his temple throbbing and he closed his eyes, listening to the rush of blood in his ears. “Go. You’re off duty until the next alpha shift. Get out.” 

By the time he opened his eyes, the cadet was gone. 

_He deftly removed the bag from the intubation tube and hooked up the ventilator, letting it push machinated air into Jim’s lungs as he seized the tricorder from the side table, eyes locked on the screen even as his free hand performed a physical examination. He felt the rigid abdomen and was calling for an OR half a second before the tricorder registered a lacerated spleen._

McCoy turned toward the rear end of sickbay, into the area they used for post-op, and slipped silently through the curtain. He glanced at the readout above Captain Pike’s bed, checked that his sedation was still adequate. He noted the readout on each biobed, because even though this was post-op, it was full, and not only with post-op patients, but they were overwhelmed with all the injuries. He finally reached the last bed, looking first at Jim’s face before he bothered with the biobed, because he had never needed a computer to know when Jim was hurt. 

_They’d been pouring new blood into him, but McCoy was up to his elbows trying to cauterize bleeds and suture tears and remove everything that was obliterated beyond recognition. They lost him twice on the table, and each time McCoy had to throw his tools into the basin provided, call for everyone to step back as he applied the paddles and Jim’s body jerked away from the table before crashing back onto it, as though he hadn’t been through enough collisions today, and each time McCoy heard the steady stream of curses coming from behind his own mask, mixed in with pleas to Jim to hold on, threats against everyone who had made Jim this way, and general disparaging comments about Jim’s stupidity and lack of self-preservation. And Jim’s heart would stutter back to a start and McCoy would bark an order for new tools and get back to it, telling Jim he knew he could make it, and just hold on a little longer, and for God’s sake if Jim made him face the Star Fleet board on his own after all this he was going to wring both their necks._

McCoy reached out a shaky hand, smoothing the hair back from Jim’s forehead. His hand lingered just a moment, checking for fever, though the biobed gauged that temperature was normal. He glanced up at the screen, checking on the pulse, the blood pressure, before he felt Jim’s unbroken wrist, needing to feel the reassurance of pressure under his fingertips before he would believe impersonal pixels. 

The surgery had lasted six hours, and when it was over, Jim’s blood pressure was next to nothing and his heart rate was fast and weak. They were still transfusing blood, but Jim was deathly pale, even now as McCoy’s eyes lingered on the difference between his tan, strong hands on Jim’s death-white skin, where the only trace of color was the mottled bruises. Jim was shirtless, bruises like ink stains marred his chest, and a large, pristine bandage covered the surgical incision, almost matching the pallor of his flesh. 

McCoy hadn’t fixed the bruises. He hadn’t fixed the broken bones. He’d used the dermal generator on the larger scrapes and gashes, as well as the incision, but everything else he had left alone. Jim was running on fumes already; McCoy didn’t think his body could take the strain. He’d put in an IV but left everything else alone. 

“Doctor?” Spock’s voice startled him, and McCoy whirled about, careful not to jostle the bed. 

“Spock,” he said by way of greeting. 

“I received word that the captain was no longer in surgery and wish to inquire as to his current condition?” 

“It’s not good,” McCoy said gruffly, turning back to look at Jim. “We took out his spleen and stopped the bleeding, but there’s a lot of damage.” Not the least of which was due to Spock himself, McCoy added, looking at the dark bruising around Jim’s neck. He noticed Spock following his gaze. 

“Doctor,” Spock began, and McCoy looked up. “I deeply regret my involvement in the captain’s injury and my contribution to his current state. With the understanding that both the captain and I were acting to protect Earth and prevent further loss of life, I realize that my actions on the bridge were most…illogical.” 

McCoy thought for a moment before speaking. “You know, Spock, I can’t entirely blame you. Jim has that effect on people. God knows I’ve wanted to strangle him a couple of times.” He tried to make it sound joking, but it fell flat to his own ears, and seeing Spock raise an eyebrow, he remembered who he was talking to. He cleared his throat. 

Spock studied him for a moment. “By my calculation, Doctor, you have been performing surgery for almost twenty hours without rest.” 

McCoy pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes, that sounds about right.” 

“It would be wise for you to take some rest. I can sit with the captain until your return,” Spock offered quietly. McCoy glanced up, confused. Was Spock becoming attached to Jim? Did Vulcans even become attached to people? It didn’t seem likely. 

“That’s all right, Spock,” McCoy replied. “I’d like to be here when he wakes up.” 

“As you wish, Doctor. You will alert me when the captain regains consciousness?” 

“Sure,” McCoy said wonderingly, watching as Spock turned on his heel and strode away, posture impossibly straight as always. 

McCoy slumped into the chair next to Jim’s bed, dragging it forward slightly so that he was as close as possible to the edge of the biobed. He reached out and gripped Jim’s hand gently, and thought how Jim would hate that if he was awake because he didn’t like to be confined, in any way. If being confined to sick bay was too much for him. McCoy could only imagine how Jim would react to having his hand incapacitated. 

But his other hand already was injured beyond use. For that matter, his whole body was confined to exactly where it was because his ribs were broken and he might puncture something else if he moved. McCoy pressed his lips together and dropped Jim’s hand, setting his own, slightly larger hand, just next to it instead. 

He thought of Romulans, of half-Vulcans, of falls of several thousand feet, of black holes and subzero temperatures and predatory aliens and he thought of how fragile humans are, how little it takes to break a person. How many things had tried to break Jim Kirk in the last three days. 

Back in the academy, McCoy had quickly learned how little respect Jim had for the fragility of his life. People his age always thought they were invincible, but Jim, as he did with everything, took it to a ridiculous extreme. The kid had picked bar fights with aliens five times as strong as he was without batting an eye, had suffered more broken bones in three years than McCoy had in his entire life. Jim routinely skipped sleeping for days at a time, often forgot to eat, and more often than not signed up for the most dangerous activities he could find. For the first year or so of patching Jim up, McCoy had asked him questions, trying to ascertain what exactly it was that made Jim think his life was so worthless that it could be thrown away like this. For the second year, he’d asked himself day in and day out why he put so much effort into someone who was obviously determined to die, and by the third he had finally just outright asked Jim what exactly he was trying to do. 

Jim Kirk did not have a death wish. He knew that now, because despite all the predicaments he got himself into, he had befriended a doctor and ensured himself free medical care, and that showed a startling amount of foresight for someone who was allegedly suicidal. He was overconfident, cocky, arrogant to the point of hilarity at times, and it allowed him to believe he could do anything. But he wasn’t delusional. It wasn’t that at all. 

He was fearless. That was all it was. Jim Kirk did not have any fears at all, because he had already lost everything there was to lose, and he had survived. What was left to fear? 

McCoy could relate. He had lost everything too. And yet he was still afraid. He did not want to die flying around in a tin can in space, nor did he want to be eaten by something large and scary, nor did he want to drown or freeze or burn to death. He feared those things in a way Jim could not understand. And he feared losing Jim, and that was something he thought Jim did understand, because one drunken night Jim had begged him to stay, afraid that McCoy would be gone and someday that he wouldn’t come back. 

Some people, when they experience loss, hold on tighter to everything they still have. They find it more precious, more valuable for still being there, and they hold onto it as hard as they can. And then there is Jim Kirk, who experienced loss and realized that things come and things go, and the harder he held on, the more it hurt when it was wrenched from his grasp. So McCoy made it his business to be sure that Jim didn’t have anything else taken from him. But the kid made it damn difficult sometimes. 

“Bones.” McCoy started, unsure when he drifted off, how long ago that was, or if he was even really asleep. He felt a couple of fingers weakly tapping his hand and he gently reached out and touched Jim’s hand as he stood up, looking down into those brilliant blue eyes. 

“Hey, kid,” he said softly. He reached for his tricorder without breaking eye contact, slowly beginning to scan. 

“Bones,” Jim said again. 

“What is it?” McCoy stopped moving the tricorder, focusing his full attention on Jim, the green pallor to his face, and he grabbed an emesis basin just in time for Jim to throw up. McCoy helped him sit up further, sitting on the edge of the bed and allowing Jim to lean heavily against him, one arm wrapped around his shoulders holding him up, the other holding the basin under his chin. 

 

“Damn it all,” McCoy muttered. “You’re allergic to the anesthesia, aren’t you?” he asked rhetorically. It hadn’t been in the chart, but of course Jim would be allergic to anesthesia. God forbid the kid’s body allow any kind of lifesaving intervention at all. 

When Jim nodded that he was done, McCoy set the basin aside and helped settle Jim back on the biobed, checking his vitals once more. He glanced at the basin. “Jesus Christ, Jim, how long has it been since you’ve eaten?” 

“I can’t remember,” Jim said hoarsely. “Before Vulcan.” 

“Damn it, Jim, that was over four days ago.” McCoy hung a banana bag and hooked it up to the IV. “And I’m sure you haven’t slept since then, either.” 

“I just woke up,” Jim said, helpfully. 

“Anesthesia does not count as real sleep,” McCoy snapped. “It’s closer to a coma than sleep, and that isn’t nearly as good for you.” 

“Bones.” McCoy looked at him, reaching once more for the basin, but Jim was just looking at him, eyes huge and worried. “The ship. How is she?”

McCoy softened. “The ship’s fine, Jim. Everything is just fine.” 

Jim looked disbelieving. “I need to go to the bridge.” 

“The hell you do,” McCoy retorted, pushing Jim gently back into the bed as he attempted weakly to sit up. 

“Bones, there’s too much to do,” Jim insisted, trying once more to sit up, and McCoy firmly but gently pushed him back down. 

“Yes there is. You’re going to lay here and heal up, and believe me, that’s plenty of work for you to do!” 

“Please,” Jim said softly. 

McCoy paused, uncertain how much he should tell Jim, how much should be left until later, and as he considered, Jim seemed to take his silence as a concession and began to try to disconnect his IV. 

“Oh, no, you don’t!” McCoy extricated Kirk’s still-broken hand from the wires around the other hand. “Jim…” 

He dropped back into his chair, running a hand through his hair. “You had a severe allergic reaction. I had to put a tube down your throat to keep you breathing. And then I had to take out your spleen because you waited so long to come here that you almost bled out and that was the quickest way to stop the bleeding. Your heart stopped twice.” 

 

Jim was quiet, watching uncertainly as McCoy took a shuddering breath and continued. “Do you know how the bone setter works? It makes your body go through the natural process of rebuilding bone, but it makes it do it at an accelerated rate. I couldn’t set any of your bones because you don’t have the calcium or other nutrients to spare to build bone again. If I sucked anymore calcium out of your system, your muscles wouldn’t be able to contract. Including your heart muscle. I couldn’t close all those gashes on your back you got from God knows where because your body doesn’t have the energy to go through that.” 

Jim swallowed. “I’m sorry. Okay? I’m sorry. I didn’t…” 

“You know what else?” McCoy spoke over him. “I can’t give you antibiotics, because that idiot cadet already compromised your system. I don’t know what to give you that you won’t be allergic to, because you’re reacting to everything. Which means I had to open your abdominal cavity to all the disgusting crap floating around in the air here, and I can’t give you anything to kill all the bacteria that is probably trying to kill you right now. Your body can’t handle another reaction right now. I can’t risk it.” 

He took a shaky breath, hating himself for putting all of that on Jim, but that was the boat they were in, and maybe all Jim was worried about was the Enterprise, but McCoy could give a rat’s ass if Scotty had figured out a faster way to get back to Earth. All that mattered at this moment was Jim, on the wide blue eyes that looked exhausted and guilty and upset, and Bones reached out and grabbed Jim’s good hand, studiously avoiding the IV. 

Jim squeezed his hand, and Bones looked up, met his eyes and Jim whispered as forcefully as he could manage past a bruised trachea: “I don’t believe in no-win scenarios.”


	3. Chapter Three

Bones was not grumpy. Anyone would have thought that was a good thing, but Kirk knew better. Bones was always grumpy, even when he was happy. He’d stomp around and scowl and gripe at everyone, a smile almost breaking through the gruff exterior. Bones actually seemed to enjoy being grumpy. 

But right now, Bones wasn’t grumpy. He wasn’t stomping or snapping, or muttering about Kirk being an idiot. He didn’t even yell when he caught Kirk making a whispered call down to engineering to check in with Scotty. He just reached across Jim and hung up without a word, then disconnected the communicator. Bones didn’t tell Kirk that if he couldn’t stay still he would have to be tied down, didn’t lecture him about his injuries, didn’t even reprimand Scotty for enabling him. He was actually being nice. 

Nice Bones scared Kirk. It scared him perhaps more than Bones’ speech, because if he were honest, he’d gotten a couple of similar speeches from Bones, and several more from other doctors over the years. He was constantly near death; this was a familiar feeling for him. A painful one, nothing he actively tried to experience again, but some things couldn’t be avoided. No, what was scary was Bones being nice and being quiet and not calling him a moron or ranting about Spock, or doing much of anything besides hovering at his side while telling him to get some sleep. 

“Bones,” Kirk whispered, hardly able to talk past all the trauma his throat had incurred over the last few days. 

“What is it, Jim?” Bones was instantly at his side, already pulling out both his tricorder again. 

“You should get some sleep.” Kirk forced the words out, inhaling sharply at the effort of it, before letting the air out just as quickly as the pain in his ribs flared. 

“I’m fine,” Bones said gruffly, turning away to unnecessarily fiddle with the IV. 

“Please,” Kirk said softly, imploring, staring intently at Bones’ back. 

“I don’t want to leave you alone,” Bones muttered, still not turning to face him. 

“Doctor.” Kirk started, and everything in his body that may have stopped screaming abruptly started again as his heart pounded and he met Spock’s eyes on the other side of his bed. 

“Damn it, Spock!” Bones snapped, equally startled as he whirled around and nearly knocked over the IV. 

“My apologies,” Spock stated. “I did not intend to surprise you. I merely came to offer my services.” 

“Your services?” Bones echoed dubiously. 

“I can sit with the Captain, while you rest,” Spock stated, hands clasped behind his back. 

“I don’t need –” Kirk started to protest, but Bones immediately shushed him. 

“You’re not supposed to talk,” he snapped, before looking back to Spock. “I’m perfectly capable of staying with him.” 

“Of course, Doctor,” Spock inclined his head slightly. “I was not implying inability. I was simply offering assistance, should you desire it.” 

“I don’t,” Bones said shortly, turning his gaze to his tricorder as he ran it over Kirk again. 

“Spock, could you give us a moment?” Kirk said, forcing the words out, and though his voice sounded both hoarse and weak, he immediately felt more in command. 

“Yes, Captain.” Spock turned on his heel and strode away, waiting just inside the door of sick bay. 

“Bones,” Kirk began, wincing as his throat hurt with each word. “You haven’t slept since this started.” 

“Neither have you,” Bones retorted. “And you’re in much worse shape than I am, and for God’s sake, stop talking.” 

“I’ll be fine without you for a few hours,” Kirk insisted. “I’ll just stay right here, no calls, no working, Bones…” he trailed off until Bones looked at him, met his eyes for the first time since Kirk had told him he didn’t believe in no win scenarios, and Kirk saw the exhaustion in his eyes, just behind the fear. “Please,” he whispered. 

“Damn it, Jim,” Bones said softly, scowling and looking away. Kirk was silent, watching, knowing he had Bones on the ropes, knowing if he spoke again he might lose. 

“Fine. But don’t come crying to me if some cadet tries to kill you again.” He turned back to look at Kirk, and Kirk beamed at him. 

“Thank you,” he whispered. 

“Shut up,” Bones snapped. “No talking, no moving, and if you so much as think of getting on that communicator, I will toss you off this ship and be done with the whole thing. I’m tired of patching you up.” 

Kirk, still smiling, sank back into his pillows as Bones stomped across sick bay to Spock, his usual grumpiness back intact. He watched the two of them talk, which seemed to be mostly Bones ranting and Spock nodding courteously, before Bones left and Spock walked over to him. 

“Captain,” Spock greeted, standing at Kirk’s bedside in his usual pose of disturbingly good posture and hands behind his back. 

“Sit,” Kirk whispered, moving his head a little to indicate the chair Bones had been using off and on, mostly off. 

Spock sat, gracefully, and looked at Kirk inscrutably. 

“How’s the ship?” Kirk asked, feeling the need to break the silence. 

“Repairs are underway, and Mr. Scott estimates we will be able to begin our journey back to Earth in approximately 39 hours.” He paused. 

“What is it?” Kirk asked, eyes wide, struggling to sit up. 

“Please, Captain, it is not the ship,” Spock said quickly, and Kirk halted, laying back once more and trying to breathe steadily through the pain he had incurred. 

“Then what?” he finally managed. 

Spock studied him for a long moment before speaking. “I believe I must apologize once more. I was incorrect –”

“Spock,” Kirk interrupted. “You don’t have to –”

“Please, Captain, allow me to finish,” Spock said. “Five days ago, I told you that you had failed to divine the purpose of the Kobayashi Maru.” 

Kirk nodded, and repeated Spock’s own words back to him. “’to experience fear in the face of certain death, to accept that fear and maintain control of oneself and one’s crew.’”

“Indeed,” Spock nodded. “I must apologize because it appears I was mistaken.” 

Kirk frowned, opened his mouth to question, but Spock continued. 

“Captain, you faced certain death, as we reached the event horizon of the black hole, and yet you maintained control of yourself and your crew. You did that which I could not.” 

“Spock…”

“Not only did you maintain control, but you defied the principal lesson of the exam. You cheated death.” Spock paused once more. “I apologize. I falsely assumed you did not have the qualities required of a captain. In reality, I was mistaken about just what those qualities were.” 

Kirk looked away, cleared his throat painfully, before looking back and meeting Spock’s eyes. “I was wrong to cheat on your test and you were right to fail me. Five days ago, there was no way I was ready to be captain. I thought I was, but I didn’t even know what it meant. I’m not sure I do now.” He paused here, unable to force any more words past his swollen, aching throat. Spock handed him a cup of water from the table next to the bed, and Kirk drank it gratefully. 

“You would have been a great captain,” Kirk said, softer now. “I mean, you will. When we get back to Earth, they’ll give the Enterprise back to you. I’ll be lucky not to go to jail.” 

“Captain, it is best if you refrain from speaking anymore,” Spock said. “Dr. McCoy has promised that, should I allow you to speak, he would cause us both great pain.” 

“He’s joking,” Kirk said. 

Spock quirked an eyebrow. “Contrary to popular belief, I do understand the concept of a joke, though I choose not to engage in them myself. However, in this case, I believe Dr. McCoy was not joking, but rather issuing an idle threat as emphasis on the importance of his orders. So I must ask you again not to speak.” 

Kirk shook his head a little and laughed, the slightly hysterical laugh of someone who has not slept, the exhaustion hitting him even harder now that he was relegated to silence. 

“It is also my understanding that you have yet to eat since the attack on Vulcan, nor have you slept aside from your time in surgery,” Spock stated. “As such, I have been ordered to make sure you rest.” 

Kirk sighed and immediately regretted it. “I can’t sleep here.” 

Spock raised one eyebrow. 

“People.” Kirk cast a meaningful glance around at the sick bay, at the people filling each and every bed as the monitors hummed, nurses whispered, people shuffled and moaned and moved and generally did all the things that made it impossible for him to sleep here. 

“Perhaps Dr. McCoy could administer a sedative?” 

“Allergic.” 

Spock frowned at him. 

“It’s okay,” Kirk said softly. He cast his gaze toward the ceiling, pondering, blinking slowly, with each blink his eyelids sticking together, and each sound forcing them apart once more. 

“How are the Vulcan passengers?” he whispered. 

“Several have been admitted here due to anxiety and grief. The others are saddened but remain in good health.” 

Kirk scrutinized Spock for a moment, searching that unreadable face. “And you?” 

“I am…” he paused. “I criticized my mother for her use of the word ‘fine’ due to its variable definitions, and yet at this moment, I find it the most adequate descriptor of my current state.”

“Your mother must have been an amazing woman,” Kirk said softly. “I’m so sorry.” 

“You are not to blame for her death, Captain,” Spock replied. 

“Neither are you,” Kirk said sharply, and Spock raised his eyebrows, then frowned, caught. 

“Yes, Captain,” he agreed, voice forcibly neutral. 

They fell silent after that, Spock looking off into the distance, very obviously not seeing anything, while Kirk returned his stare to the ceiling. 

Bones had always thought that Kirk did not understand his fear of space, that no one could throw themselves so enthusiastically off-planet if they understood the full implications that Bones saw. But Kirk did understand. On long winter’s nights in Iowa, gazing up at the open sky, past the moon, naming the closest stars and reciting the long numbers that represented the unfathomable distance between here and there, Kirk understood. This was home, and there was a security about it, a solidity of earth under his feet that could not be present in space, in the polished white hallways of a starship, in the artificial gravity, with the knowledge that the vacuum of space pulled at every surface around him. He thought of being out there, of a cracked hull or a failed engine or an exploding warp core, and the foreignness of everything around, the knowledge that the entire rest of his world was down there and he was up here, that nothing would be coming out to help, that he was entirely alone. 

He had realized later that he was alone either way. He was born in space, not on Earth. That help was closer to space than it was to Nowhere, Iowa. That utter solitude was preferable to drunk step fathers, sullen brothers, absent mothers. At least space was his choice, and no one else’s. 

But he knew for the people of Vulcan, it was not a choice. It was forced, unwanted, and most certainly artificial. These were the people who had chosen not to go into space, but to pursue lives on-planet. People with mothers and fathers and siblings and children and a whole culture and history that had disintegrated in the span of half an hour, and how earth-shattering was that? That your whole world, literally, could evaporate in less time than it took to attend a class, eat a meal, less time than it took some people to shower. 

His chest hurt with the realization of it, the mere recognition of that pain, and he hated himself for lying in bed while they were suffering, when he could be helping to do something, anything. That he could think for a second that his pain represented even a fraction of theirs…

“Don’t even think about it.” Bones’ cool hand arrested Kirk’s where he had seized his IV. Kirk looked up, startled, and looked around quickly for Spock, locating him behind Bones’ shoulder. 

“I was just going to –”

“Shut up and rest, yes, you were,” Bones finished for him. “But we’re leaving the IV in until you have a few substantial meals, so don’t get any ideas.” He crossed his arms and scowled at Jim. He cast a glance over his shoulder. “I’ve got it from here, Spock.” 

“Captain,” Spock nodded, by way of goodbye, and took his leave. Bones took out his tricorder and hovered over Kirk, grumbling as he read it. 

“Of course he didn’t keep you quiet, God forbid he could follow one simple instruction.” 

“Don’t,” Kirk said plaintively. 

Bones raised his eyebrows. “Did you kiss and make up while I was away?” 

Kirk glared at him then closed his eyes, unable and not permitted to put into words this new armistice with Spock. He opened his eyes. “Vulcans.” 

Bones sighed and sank into the chair next to the bed. “A few of them are having a hard time, but they’re a tough people, Jim. They’re going to pull through.” 

“I need to help,” Kirk insisted. 

“No. Kid, I hate to tell you, but you aren’t going to be much good to anyone right now. I honestly doubt you can even stand,” he said gently, but at the look on Kirk’s face quickly continued, “And if you try to prove me wrong I will give you so many hypos your neck really will hurt!” 

“Bones, their whole planet…” 

“I know what you’re thinking. But it isn’t your fault. Even if you had figured it out sooner, there wouldn’t have been enough time to save Vulcan. We couldn’t have gotten there or intervened any sooner, and there wasn’t anything else we could do. You did everything you could. We all did.” Bones paused, then met Kirk’s eyes. “You can’t make it your fault, because that makes the deaths of everyone who was there trying to save Vulcan meaningless. If you were the only solution, they died for no reason. That’s not fair, and it’s not true, okay? We did the best we could.” 

Kirk swallowed hard and nodded. “Bones…” 

“I know, kid. Just relax now. You did good.” Bones reached out and gently squeezed Kirk’s good, non-bandaged hand. “You did good.”


	4. Chapter Four

Jim’s eyes finally drifted closed and stayed. Slowly, the look of pain that had hovered on his face relaxed into a state of uneasy sleep. McCoy exhaled absolutely silently in relief, knowing the tiniest noise would wake Jim up. 

He hadn’t slept in five days, which was, in McCoy’s professional opinion, one of the most ridiculous things he had ever heard. It was not the longest a human had ever stayed awake, not even close, but it was certainly entirely too long. He chalked it up to the combination of obstinacy and adrenaline that was Jim Kirk, the absurd notion of invincibility combined with the single-minded attention to the current life-threatening disaster he had probably caused. 

Someone coughed on the other end of sick bay and Jim’s eyes snapped open immediately. McCoy groaned. 

“Dammit, Jim, just stay asleep. I know you’re tired enough,” he groused. Jim rolled his head on the pillow just enough to look at McCoy pathetically. 

“You slept through the beginning of your first trip on a starship but you can’t sleep through a damn cough?” McCoy continued. 

“Not my first,” Jim croaked, and McCoy scowled, realizing he was right. 

“Quiet. All I’m saying is, you’ve got to get over this. Your body needs sleep. We’re trying to avoid an infection here, and you’re just begging for one by keeping yourself awake.” 

Jim sighed loudly, and winced. McCoy sighed too, frustrated and pained just from watching him struggle. 

Jim closed his eyes again, slowly allowing himself to relax, and after a long moment McCoy was just beginning to think he might have dropped off when someone dropped a tray of instruments and Jim awoke so violently he almost fell out of his bed. 

McCoy was out of his chair in an instant, helping to settle Jim back against the pillows, gently shifting Jim to be more comfortable, whispering soothing words as Jim tried to breathe through the pain. It was several minutes before Jim opened his eyes, and McCoy saw the upset and the desperation. 

“This isn’t working,” he mused. “You’re never going to sleep here, are you?” 

Jim shook his head, eyes once again imploring. 

McCoy thought about it, grumbling aloud to himself about this plan, not liking it one bit, but of course nothing about Jim Kirk could be simple, ever. 

“Fine,” McCoy conceded, as though it was Jim’s fault somehow. “Here’s the deal, and let me be clear, none of these conditions are negotiable. You’re going to stay right here in this bed and you aren’t going to move an inch. You’re going to keep your IV in and you’re not going to scratch it anymore,” he slapped Jim’s hand away from the needle as he said it. “And you’re going to eat something.” 

“Bones, I –”

“I know, you’re nauseated, but the IV isn’t enough, so you’ve got to try.” 

“What do I get?” Jim asked, guardedly, and McCoy took this as agreement to the terms. 

“I’m going to move your biobed to my room, so you can get some sleep.” 

Jim appeared to consider this for a moment, a long enough moment that McCoy tacked an addendum onto his offer. “I wasn’t asking, Jim.” 

Jim sighed loudly again and nodded the assent McCoy had deemed unnecessary. McCoy nodded too, not at all pleased with the plan, but not quite as displeased as he had expected himself to be. He quickly caught M’benga and filled him in on the plan, asking him to keep an eye on the rest of sickbay while he stayed with Jim, all as he pressed the right sequence of buttons on the dermal generator. M’benga agreed readily, and McCoy made a mental note that he actually did like M’benga, at least for the moment. 

Turning back to Jim, he cautiously removed the bandage over the surgical incision, and placed the dermal generator in position. “I hate to do this, Jim, but I don’t think we can move you until we go over this at least once more. It’s going to hurt, but I don’t think we can avoid it.” 

Jim nodded again, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth. McCoy pressed the final button and the machine hummed to life, and McCoy clenched his teeth too, knowing that this could be painful even with painkillers stronger than the over the counter stuff being fed through Jim’s IV. Modern medicine was incredible, able to heal cuts and broken bones in hours instead of weeks, but it came at a price. Healing, building new tissue, was hard on the body. It took a lot of energy, a lot of materials and a lot of work. It was exhausting to have that kind of energy and substance leached from you in a matter of minutes instead of a matter of days. 

He could see sweat breaking out on Jim’s forehead and he gently dabbed it away with a cloth, reminding Jim that tensing would make it more painful, Jim clenched his fist, just the uninjured one, and breathed as deeply as he could without upsetting either his ribs or his throat, before slowly relaxing his core muscles. McCoy firmly grabbed Jim’s hand, prying the fist open and placing his own hand there, ignoring the four crescents of blood from Jim’s fingernails. Jim’s hand fairly throttled his own, but he disregarded that, too, placing his other hand on the back of Jim’s. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” 

“Not your fault,” Jim ground out. “It’s not that bad.” He opened his eyes and forced a smile at McCoy. “Really.” 

Contrary to Jim’s belief, McCoy hated causing him pain. Despite his grumbling and name-calling, he knew hypos hurt, and while he firmly believed that Jim could take it, he felt bad any time Jim hurt, be it from a hypo, from the dermal generator, and especially from insane Romulans. 

By the time the machine finished its cycle and whirred off, McCoy’s jaw was sore from clenching his teeth in sympathy, and his hand had been mangled to the point he could scarcely even feel it. However, Jim seemed still worse off, thoroughly exhausted from the procedure, pale and sweating. 

“All done,” McCoy said lightly. “What say we eat in my room, huh?” 

Jim gave him the most pathetic look he could muster, and McCoy wanted to give in so bad, but he knew Jim needed this, even if he didn’t want it. “You have to eat, Jim. Just a bit. You’ll feel better, I promise.” 

He once again tapped the appropriate buttons, then detached the bed from the wall port, allowing it to float effortlessly in front of him. He steered it carefully through sickbay and out of the doors towards the lift. 

The ride was short, and at the appropriate floor, McCoy gently pushed the bed the regrettably short distance to his own door. 

“Jim, when you’re cleared for duty again, I want you to assign me a new room. I don’t like being close to the lift, it’s loud.” Jim glanced up at him and smirked a little, nodding in mock understanding. 

“Number one priority,” he rasped as McCoy maneuvered the bed through the door and hooked it back up to the ship wall next to his own bed. 

“Wise ass,” McCoy muttered, stomping over to the replicator. “What do you want to eat?” He punched in an order without waiting for a reply, knowing Jim didn’t actually want anything to eat and wouldn’t actually give any kind of helpful input. 

“Nothing,” Jim said tiredly, eyes already drooping in the quiet of McCoy’s room. 

“No, you don’t,” McCoy said, setting a plate on the tray over the bed and lightly bumping Jim’s shoulder. “Eat first.” 

Jim looked at it dubiously, as though he had never seen something like this before. 

“For God’s sake, it’s chicken soup,” McCoy said. “Even you should be able to handle something that plain.” 

Jim rolled his eyes, but dutifully picked up his spoon and splashed around in the soup a bit before finally taking a tiny sip. 

“So, Jim,” McCoy began. “I’ve got to ask. How in the hell did you get back on the Enterprise?” 

“Scotty helped me,” Jim mumbled, taking another mouthful of soup. 

“No one thought beaming aboard a ship moving warp speed was possible. I think we would’ve heard if it was,” McCoy argued. 

“Guess it is now.” 

“Jim,” McCoy said sharply. Jim glanced up, but quickly returned his gaze to his soup. “What aren’t you telling me?” 

“Nothing.” 

McCoy sighed. “You want to at least tell me what the hell happened to you on Delta Vega? I saw the gashes on your back, I’m sure there’s a spectacular story there.” 

“Got chased by a polar bear thing, then I got chased by a giant ice monster thing, and I fell down a hill,” he said in a rush, still not looking up from the soup he had stopped eating. 

“A hill?” McCoy raised his eyebrows and stopped immediately because it made him feel like Spock. 

“A big hill,” Jim amended. 

“A big hill.” 

“Possibly more like a mountain.” He paused. “Or a cliff.” 

“Jesus, Jim,” McCoy swore. “Can you go five minutes without almost dying?” 

“Probably not,” Jim replied matter-of-factly, pushing his tray away, less than half the soup gone. 

McCoy glanced at it. “C’mon, Jim.” 

“I can’t,” Jim said softly. “Please.” McCoy sighed and took the tray away, turning back to Jim to find him already settled further into bed, eyes beginning to drift closed. 

He settled himself at his desk to read and file reports on his PADD, and ordered, “Lights, ten percent.” He heard Jim shift a little and then be still, and he was halfway through his first report, sure Jim was sleeping when Jim spoke. 

“It hurts, Bones.” It was so soft, McCoy thought he might’ve imagined it, but he heard Jim clear his throat painfully and he was out of his chair and at Jim’s side in an instant, not even bothering with the lights. 

“What hurts? Where?” he asked, tricorder already out. 

“I don’t think it was my fault, exactly, but Bones, it hurts,” Jim said again. “They’re all gone and it’s gone and it hurts.” 

“Vulcan,” McCoy said, realizing, setting the tricorder down. 

“And Spock’s mother, I didn’t even tell him, but God, that makes it even worse,” Jim continued. 

“What do you mean, you didn’t tell him?” McCoy asked. “He knows about his mother.” 

“I…right. No, I just…” he trailed off. 

“Jim, what aren’t you telling me?” McCoy found Jim’s shoulder in the dark, squeezed it gently. 

“You’re going to think I’m crazy.” 

Jim, I’ve seen a planet get sucked into a black hole, saw you appear out of nowhere somewhere you couldn’t be, and I watched a giant drill nearly take out the Golden Gate Bridge, all in the last two days. At this point, you can tell me the craziest thing you can make up and I’m going to believe it.” 

“I met Spock on Delta Vega.” 

“Spock was on the ship while you were on Delta Vega,” McCoy said. 

“Future Spock. He came through the wormhole with Nero. He told me how to get back on the ship. How to get command. Why Nero…He showed me the…” He broke off, and McCoy could feel him shaking. 

“Jim. Listen to me. Did he do a mind meld with you?” In the darkness, McCoy could just make out as Jim nodded his head. “And it hurts…” He finally understood. The emotional transference, in the wake of watching Vulcan disintegrate, must have been overwhelming, incredibly concentrated, even dangerous…

Jim nodded again, and McCoy dragged himself out of the haze of psychiatric and medical terms parading through his mind. 

“Okay, Jim. I’m going to give you something for the anxiety, okay? You’ve had it before, you’re not allergic. It’s just going to calm you down so you can sleep, okay?” He was pulling the hypo from his kit as he spoke. 

“I haven’t had that before,” Jim murmured. 

“Sure you have. You just didn’t know about it,” McCoy replied, pressing the hypo as gently as he could to Jim’s neck, remembering one of Jim’s birthdays at the academy coinciding with exams in several classes, remembering Jim pacing their room day in and day out for days leading up to it, unable to sleep, until McCoy had finally pressed him to drink a cup of coffee he didn’t know was decaf and dosed with something to make him calm down. 

“You drugged me?” Jim asked, and McCoy could hear in his voice that the hypo was taking effect, every syllable soft at the edges. 

“Just the once,” he promised, making a mental note to never reveal the other times he had drugged Jim without his knowledge. He didn’t believe in giving a hypo for just anything, but Jim never had just anything, he always had the most extreme and unreasonable version of everything. If drugging him now meant he’d stop feeling someone else’s pain and just sleep for a while, McCoy had no objection at all. 

“Bones…” Jim grumbled, but didn’t make it past that first disgruntled word before his eyes closed and his breathing evened out. 

McCoy carefully removed his hand from Jim’s shoulder, silently moving back to his desk. He picked up his PADD and exited the report he was writing without saving, pulling up a database. He planned to find out a little more about this Vulcan mind meld.


	5. Chapter Five

After reading what had to be the hundredth report on the effects of a mind meld, McCoy dropped his PADD to his lap and scrubbed a hand over his face, suppressing his scream of frustration only in deference to the monumental task it would be to get Jim back to sleep should he awake. 

The problem with scientists, McCoy mused, was that they wrote reports to sound scientific, not to actually be useful. There was an accepted standard of reporting, a style so particular that no individual voice stood out through the strings of numbers and alphabet soup of acronyms. Papers discussed data, with error bars and standard deviation and p-values, and not once in all of those papers had a single person bothered to describe what it felt like to be a party to a mind meld past the vague terms like “emotional transference” and “trauma.” 

McCoy picked up his PADD once more, resigning himself to what he had determined to be a last resort, typing out a quick message and sending it before he could think better of it. He received a message back within seconds. 

Levering himself out his chair and cursing long hours of little movement. He picked his way carefully around the end of the biobed, glancing up at the screen and verifying that all the life signs were in decent shape, before he made his way to the door, slipping out as silently and quickly as possible. He rested his ear against the door to make sure Jim hadn’t noticed the quick bit of light from the hallway, but all was quiet. 

“Have you misplaced your access code, Doctor?” 

McCoy jumped, whirling about and wincing as his sore muscles leapt to attention. “No, Spock, I did not misplace my access code,” he retorted, straightening his shirt and standing up straighter. 

Spock inclined his head in a small, courteous nod. “With what, then, may I assist you?” 

“I need you to tell me about the Vulcan mind meld,” McCoy said, keeping his voice low. 

Spock, much to McCoy’s surprise, mimicked his low volume, speaking in undertones. “The mind meld is a gift unique to Vulcans, according to all current experience. It involves placing the hands on another being, typically of the same species or a similar one, and often involves a rhythmic verbal device. It requires great concentration, but when done correctly, allows the combination of the essences of two minds into one.” 

“Right, yes,” McCoy said. “But what does it feel like?” 

“I have never experience a mind meld.” 

“Speculate, then,” McCoy said, bordering on exasperation. 

“It is my understanding that the experience is very much dependent on the individual. Many report positive experiences, and some practice the mind meld as a regular act of intimacy. Others do not seem to enjoy the sensation, and still others have suffered extreme reactions.” Spock paused for a moment. “As I am sure you are aware, Doctor, the mind is not simply the brain, not simply thought. It is a summation of the entire being, including physical and emotional elements.” 

“I thought you Vulcans didn’t do emotions,” McCoy muttered, scarcely paying Spock any mind as he pondered the implications of Spock’s definition of the mind. 

“On the contrary, Doctor,” Spock said, raising his eyebrows. “Vulcans are capable of emotions so extreme as to easily surpass those of humans. Prior to the code of emotional control put in place by Surak, Vulcans were known for their rages.” 

“You don’t say,” McCoy said, as sarcastically as he could possibly manage. 

Spock raised one eyebrow at him before lowering his gaze. “I apologize once more for my behavior on the bridge,” he began. 

“It’s fine, Spock,” McCoy said. “It’s in the past. What I’m more interested in is how these violent emotions can be transferred through the mind meld.” 

“They are not diminished in the transfer, if that is your question,” Spock replied. “In fact, some recipients of a mind meld have reported that transferred emotions seem more pure, more concentrated, and thus, often times, less manageable.” 

“You said you can meld between a Vulcan and a similar species. How do other species hold up to that?” McCoy demanded. 

“Some better than others,” Spock said carefully. “But I infer that you are not asking about species in general, but rather, your own.” At McCoy’s silence he continued. “It is my understanding that there are as many responses as there are humans, Doctor.” 

McCoy rubbed tiredly at his eyes. “What kind of negative effects are we talking about, here?” 

“Of course, dependent on the experiences shared during the meld, symptoms may differ. The most severe mimic those of other types of psychological or emotional trauma.” Spock paused once more, giving McCoy a scrutinizing look. “With whom did the Captain experience a mind meld?” 

“No one,” McCoy said, knowing at once he spoke too immediately. He was certain Jim had not told Spock of the Future Spock. He couldn’t imagine that the space-time continuum could be any further damaged from this revelation, when one considered the sheer number of wormholes probably hanging about in space, and of the couple new ones invented just today. But it was not McCoy’s tale to tell. 

Spock continued to look at him impassably, before finally speaking slowly, glancing away so as not to meet McCoy’s eyes. “The loss of Vulcan came as both a shock and an awakening to us. It is common that the death of a loved one, or perhaps the loss of a nation and home, would cause overwhelming sadness, as well as a need to evaluate one’s own mortality. If one were to experience a meld with any of the remaining Vulcans, they would be wise to consider the transfer of grief as a significant risk. If one were to experience a meld with a certain one of us, one might also consider the transfer of guilt.” 

McCoy sighed. “You know you didn’t cause this, right?” 

“Recent evidence indicates that while I may not have acted in any way to directly cause this tragedy, it would appear my name may not be completely absolved of guilt. I do not feel guilty, Doctor. That would be illogical. I am merely suggesting someone might.” Spock inclined his head slightly. “May I assist in anything else?” 

“No, that’s it. Thank you,” McCoy responded, forcing a smile. Spock nodded and stepped into the lift in only two strides, and McCoy made yet another mental note that he was entirely too close to an area of such high traffic. 

As soon as the doors of the lift slid closed, McCoy stepped forward to the doors of his own room, allowing them to recognize him and open. Immediately as they opened, he sprung forward, catching Jim’s arm where he thrashed, mumbling insistent nonsense in the throes of a nightmare. 

“Jim!” McCoy called. He gently pushed Jim’s arm back to his side and held it there, keeping him from ripping out his IV. His other hand squeezed Jim’s shoulder firmly but gently. “Jim, wake up. C’mon, it’s just a dream, wake up!” 

Jim lurched to sitting as he awoke, and McCoy dropped his old on Jim’s wrist and grabbed the emesis basin, shoving it under Jim’s chin just in time. He sat on the edge of the bed, once more allowing Jim to lean back against his chest as he lost the tiny amount he had managed to eat. 

“It’s okay, Jim, it’s okay. You’re okay. Just a dream. You’re going to feel better soon. Shh. It’s okay,” he murmured. Jim coughed painfully and spit into the basin, and McCoy set it aside, but remained where he was, allowing Jim to feel his slow, steady breathing, even as he felt Jim’s halting gasps. 

McCoy had never been overly fond of people invading his personal space. It was hypocritical, he knew, as much as he was in the business of everyone else’s bodies and personal space. But he was a professional, and few people had a reason to touch him beyond to shake his hand. 

Jim was different. It wasn’t that McCoy particularly enjoyed physical contact of any sort with Jim, but rather that Jim imposed himself so much that McCoy had slowly resigned himself to accepting it. Jim was constantly clapping him on the shoulder, whacking him on the back, and other such violent yet affectionate gestures. But Jim was also constantly sick or hurt or suffering from something that involved McCoy having to half carry him, hold him up, and generally invade both of their personal space. Besides that, they were roommates back at the Academy, and sharing that kind of minimal space has a way of making someone get comfortable with people. 

Slowly, McCoy shifted himself off the bed, gently supporting Jim back to laying down. “What was it?” he asked softly. 

“Do you know what it’s like to die in a black hole?” Jim asked hollowly. 

“Almost,” McCoy wanted to say, but it wasn’t the time. He shook his head. 

“There’s a word for it. Spaghettification. It doesn’t sound like a real word, but it is. And it’s exactly what it sounds like. That gravity grabs you and it’s so strong it stretches you into spaghetti.” Jim cleared his throat loudly, breathed as deeply as possible for a long moment, and then said, “All of them…” 

“I know, Jim,” McCoy said softly. “I know. It’s terrible.” Because there was nothing else to say. Because it was terrible, and he couldn’t say it was okay because it wasn’t, and he couldn’t said it would be because it wouldn’t, and he couldn’t say they’d move on because why should they? All he could say was that he knew because he did, because when he thought about millions of Vulcans in that all-encompassing gravity, he felt it too, pulling at the bottom of his heart, and he knew because it was all of them, it was everyone they’d known at the Academy, it was most of Starfleet, most of the starships, it was their friends, and for every one of them he could name there were a million Vulcans he couldn’t name who had people like McCoy and Jim left behind. He knew because he knew how bad he felt, and he felt that bad for every one of them, and he felt worse for all the people who knew them, and he felt even worse that each of them probably thought someone else’s pain was even worse, because maybe he had lost a friend but someone had lost a grandparent but another had lost a parent and another had lost a spouse and another had lost a child and another had lost everyone. It was unquantifiable, that loss, and every bit of scientist in him wanted to order and count it and make it into cold, unfeeling data, because somehow knowing that six billion people died hurt less than knowing Spock’s mother died. 

McCoy felt it, that immeasurable loss, and then he multiplied it by that numberless factor of it being Vulcan, then by yet another innumerable number for the power of a mind meld, and he knew. 

“Jim…” he whispered, and Jim turned to him, eyes wide and yet unseeing, hidden somehow behind the haze of anti-anxiety drugs, and yet they were no less anxious, just further away. McCoy wished for all the world just to mix a hypo that cured loss, that cured grief and trauma and pain. 

Instead, he reached out, meaning to gently push Jim’s hair from his face, just to remind Jim that he was still here, they were still here, that someone was here to care about and for him. 

His palm contacted Jim’s skin and he jerked it back, his mind flying back to the diagram of a reflex arc, of responding to stimulus before it reaches the brain, to get out of danger before even more damage is done and he pictured the diagram, the hand over a stove and he felt it as the signal made it to his brain, the burning heat of it. 

He swallowed hard, glancing up at the screen of the biobed, then back down at Jim’s pallor, at the flush just on his cheeks, at the sweat dotting his brow, back up to the screen, at the obvious fever that was the first sign that grief and pain and all of it may have been the least of their worries.


	6. Chapter Six

As much as he tried to hide it, few people who had spent more than five minutes with Jim Kirk thought he was anything less than a genius. Most of them, in fact, tried to place him in a category above genius, but there wasn’t much terminology for that sort of thing. 

He didn’t like people to know, at least not right away. For all the arrogance he knew he had, he had an impressive streak of what he called modesty and what Bones called the only hint of self-preservation he had ever displayed. Simply put, everyone hated the kid who answers all the questions, and Kirk didn’t like to be that kid. This did not stop him from taking the hardest classes the Academy had to offer, excelling in everything, and occasionally butting into other majors just to pick up a few skills. Thinking back on it, this was probably why people realized what a genius he was, but if there was one thing Kirk hated more than being found out, it was being bored, so he kept at it. 

All of this to say, conceptually, Kirk fully understood the mind meld. He understood what Spock had told him, what Spock had shown him, and he understood all the feelings wrapped up in those things. Conceptually, he understood emotional transference. He knew his feelings weren’t his own. He did. But that didn’t stop him from feeling them anyway. For all his conceptual understanding, the actual feeling was something else entirely. 

Kirk was not overly thrilled with the idea of Bones drugging him, but whatever it was that Bones had shot him up with to take the edge off this anxiety had done wonders. Had. He could feel himself coming out of it now, the lazy haze of it lifting, the veil between him and all these mismatched, unfelt feelings drawing back and leaving him exposed. He usually was not all that intrigued by anything that made him feel so hazy or tired, aside from alcohol, but he was so tired now that he didn’t think he would even notice the difference. 

But Bones was not as quick with the hypo as he usually was. In fact, he seemed to be doing something else entirely, for that was not a hypo in his hand at all, but a tricorder. And he was saying something, and Kirk wondered idly how long Bones had been talking and he had not been listening. 

“-a pretty high fever, but the tricorder isn’t picking up anything yet. Do you feel sick? Does anything hurt?” 

“Stomach hurts,” Kirk noted, and noticing when he spoke, “and throat.” 

“Your throat hurts because you keep talking after three people tried to strangle you,” Bones said gruffly, and Kirk almost broke in to mention that Bones had asked him a question, but Bones had already moved on. “Your stomach or your abdomen?” 

Kirk thought about that. He had just thrown up, so all in all, his stomach felt queasy and a little uncomfortable at the idea of being attached to his body, but otherwise okay. “Abdomen.” 

“You’re supposed to hurt there, I just cut you open a couple hours ago,” Bones said. “Does it hurt like more than that?” 

“No?” Kirk guessed, assuming that being cut open probably explained anything less comfortable than a punch. 

“Damn tricorder,” Bones cursed. “We might have to just wait it out. And it could be nothing,” he added hopefully. 

Bones pulled his desk chair up next to the biobed and settled into it, PADD in hand. Kirk kept his eyes trained on the dimly lit screen of the PADD, trying to catch a title or headline to indicate what Bones was working so hard on, though he had a vague idea. He thought of Bones staying up and reading these articles, of the way he always leaned back in his chair, ankle resting on his knee, PADD held almost at arm’s length against his leg, the other hand at his face, as though about to stroke the beard he didn’t have, of the way Bones would sit like this for hours at a time without moving a muscle except to swipe his thumb across the buttons of the PADD to progress to the next page. He thought of the way he could hear Bones’ spine pop when he stood and stretched after these marathon study sessions, and he thought of the ache that must accompany that, and he thought of himself causing it. 

“Bones,” he murmured. “Bones.” 

Bones glanced up at him, and Kirk watched all his muscles tense as he prepared himself to stand, though he did not actually move. 

“You should sleep,” he said. “Please.” 

“Kid, my shift just ended a couple minutes ago,” Bones said. “You were only asleep for a couple hours.” 

Kirk frowned. It had certainly felt longer than that, with all the times he had been woken up in sick bay, the time for the dermal generator, and then the time he had been asleep. It had to have been longer. 

“I promise, I’m not tired,” Bones said, relaxing into his chair. “But I can tell you are, so go back to sleep.” 

Kirk shook his head, even as his body screamed for sleep. His mind was awake, it was humming and running through memories, of Vulcan and of the Academy and of days before a whole ship depended on him, of riding his motorcycle across the empty plains of Iowa, of what clean, fresh hair tasted like. 

Slowly he found himself talking. He heard himself telling Bones about the air here and the air on Vulcan, the hot dryness of it that made his lungs itch, of how he gasped and gasped for breath there as he and Sulu fell, and he could feel the air rushing past him but he couldn’t feel it rushing down his throat, couldn’t feel it in his lungs, just the dust of it gritting back and forth as his lungs opened and closed on nothing. He told Bones how Vulcan looked from a distance, the red colour to it, the Earth-size and how an eye opened in the center of it, how it dissolved before his eyes. He told Bones how the planet turned to dust, the way it looked like sand sinking through an hour glass, the bolts of light that electrocuted those last particles, and he told Bones how silent it had all been, how in his head they all screamed and cried and hugged their loved ones and someone prayed and someone else said it was all a dream, and somewhere little kids played or went to school and didn’t even know until it was too late, but really it was all so silent because sound doesn’t travel through space. He told Bones about that old saying, about a tree falling and he asked if someone should have heard the screams, if they were real if no one heard them, if this all really happened if he couldn’t prove it but in his own memory. 

“Bones. Bones,” he said, voice rough from speaking. “Bones, I think maybe I caused it. I think maybe it was my fault. That’s right, isn’t it? I made Nero mad and he destroyed Vulcan to show me what it was like? Bones, that’s right, isn’t it?” 

“No, no, that’s not right,” Bones said soothingly, and he was at Kirk’s side, though he had never seen Bones get up, and Bones kept running his hand over his head, pushing his hair back, and Bones was so cold, but it felt so much better. “You never met Nero before, remember?” 

“Right. That’s right. I didn’t meet him,” Kirk said. He knew, he knew that. Nero had done it to show Spock. He knew Spock’s feelings were mixed with his own, he knew that this wasn’t all real and it didn’t all apply to him, but he couldn’t tell the difference, he couldn’t remember which feelings were his and which weren’t. He had never been good at feelings. 

“Vulcan isn’t my home,” he said, because he knew that was true. It was true without a doubt because he was from Iowa, and riding his motorcycle through the hot air of a summer night, that was just him, Spock wasn’t there at all. 

“That’s right,” Bones said softly, and he was being so nice, Kirk thought, and he missed how Bones usually called him either an idiot or an infant because Bones was only nice when something was really wrong. 

“Bones, Bones, am I really sick?” he asked, realizing it as he said it that it must be true, because he didn’t sound like himself, because he didn’t ask questions like this and he didn’t ramble so much and he didn’t tell anyone about his feelings unless he was too drunk to remember. 

“Yeah. Yeah, Jim, you’re really sick. You’ve got a fever. Do you feel it?” 

“I’m cold.” It was true as soon as he said it. He felt himself shivering and he knew it had been happening a while, but he didn’t know how long and he didn’t remember it starting, but he was shivering and it hurt, it hurt really badly. 

Bones tugged his blanket a little higher and glanced up at the biobed screen, worried. 

Kirk frowned. “How is the Enterprise?” he asked, because the Enterprise, like Iowa, was just his. He was her captain and he cared about her more than anyone else could. But that wasn’t true. Spock used to be captain, Spock cared, and Future Spock had been on the Enterprise a long time, and maybe he didn’t love the Enterprise, maybe that was Spock too. “She’s mine, right? The Enterprise, she’s mine?” 

“Yes, Jim, you’re the captain. She’s okay, she’s just fine. You’re just fine and you’re still the captain,” Bones murmured, and he stopped stroking Kirk’s hair, his hand twitching toward the comm. Before staying in place. 

“Bones, you have to take care of her, okay? Keep everyone safe and make sure the Enterprise gets home.” 

“Jim, what are you talking about? I’m not the captain, and you aren’t going anywhere.” 

“Bones, please. Just promise me.” Kirk looked at Bones imploringly, and he knew Bones would promise, and more than that, he knew Bones would make it happen, because Bones always came through for him. 

“I promise,” Bones sighed. He reached for the comm., the coolness of his hand being immediately replaced by the rushing heat of fever. 

“Bones, I need one more thing.” The words felt foreign. They sounded both like a captain and not, because a captain shouldn’t have to ask for favors, should he? And yet he heard the order in his voice, the command in his tone. 

“What is it?” 

“Don’t let them see, okay?” His voice was so rough and weak. It bubbled from his throat, weaker and then stronger again, washing in and out like the waves, but each burst of strength was weaker than the last, like a tide going out. 

“Don’t let them see what?” Bones leaned over him, his hand back on Kirk’s forehead, his other hand clutching Kirk’s tightly, and Kirk did not know when he had grabbed Bones’ hand, but he realized now he was squeezing as hard as he could, and it wasn’t even enough to make Bones glance at it. 

“Don’t let them see me die,” Kirk said clearly. He heard Bones say something, something insistent about how he would not die or some other such nonsense, but it was distant, so far off he could barely make out the words much less respond. He felt his hand slip between Bones’ strong fingers, as his eyes drifted closed, the world going dark and he was floating through starless, lightless space before his hand even hit the mattress.


	7. Chapter Seven

Contrary to popular belief, a fever is not, in and of itself, dangerous. Sometimes they could even be beneficial, although that had always been a controversial notion. Regardless, a fever is not harmful, on its own. But it’s a sign of something else, and that something else could get damn near to killing you. 

Jim Kirk was not dying. He was simply dramatic. McCoy knew, he knew as he watched Jim’s fever climb and as Jim finally passed out, that he was getting very sick. But he wasn’t dying. Not by a long shot. In fact, knowing Jim, he didn’t even think he was dying. While most people thought from one point to the next and from there to the next, Jim had an unsettling habit of skipping the middle steps, arriving at the final conclusion and responding to it aloud almost out of context. Initially, McCoy had found it annoying, random, and occasionally eerie; now he accepted it as one of the more irritating symptoms of Jim’s genius. 

Jim didn’t think he was dying, he merely thought it was possible. For all his genius, McCoy maintained that Jim knew next to nothing of how the body worked, and in his uncertainty about what exactly was happening, he planned for all contingencies. He could be dying, and if he was, he didn’t want to do it in front of everyone in sick bay. McCoy understood this, after years of interpreting Jim’s esoteric exclamations, and he appreciated what Jim said, as he unhooked the biobed and maneuvered it out of his quarters, into the turbolift, down the hall and into the far corner of sick bay. Jim wasn’t dying, but he did need medical attention, more than McCoy could provide in cramped quarters. 

He hooked the bed up once more, hung a new IV bag, and picked up the tricorder. There was a quiet hum about sickbay, the soft chirp of numerous machines that were never in sync, a constant background murmur that all faded as he carefully scanned Jim’s entire body. The tricorder registered the fever, an infection, but it was all so general. Sighing, McCoy resulted to the old methods, pulling a needle and a vacutainer from his kit and preparing to draw blood. 

Jim flinched minutely as McCoy inserted the needle, and blue eyes locked onto the sliver of metal penetrating his skin, before skimming the view of sickbay and blinking up at McCoy. “Guess I’m not dying, huh?” 

“You listen to me, kid. I’ve spent too many years trying to keep you alive. I don’t like wasting my time.” McCoy met his eyes as he waited for the vacutainer to fill. “You’re not going anywhere.” 

“Okay,” Jim mumbled, eyes drifting closed again. “Just checking.” 

“Uh-huh.” McCoy removed the vacutainer and then the needle, immediately pressing gauze over the vein. 

“Ow,” Jim mumbled without much conviction. 

“Shut up,” McCoy said, but he said it kindly. He taped the gauze in place and turned to fit the vial of blood into the machine that would run the sample, before turning back to rest his palm on Jim’s forehead. 

“Hand’s cold,” Jim said softly. “Feels nice.” 

It damn well should, McCoy thought, because Jim was burning up. A glance up at the biobed readout told him Jim was quickly entering the stage of fever that was not so harmless, and he reached singlehandedly for cold packs, his other hand still on Jim’s head, comforting. 

He set the packs on the edge of the bed, within easy reach should they become necessary. Then, carefully, he checked Jim over, every cut and bruise, looking for signs of infection, somewhere to smear antibiotics and fix the problem. But everything seemed okay, despite the fever, despite every obvious sign that Jim was anything but okay. 

The biobed chirped shrilly and Jim’s eyes snapped open. McCoy had muted the sound almost the second it had happened, but Jim Kirk had been in sickbay enough to know that biobed noises were never a sign of anything good. 

“Jim, your fever is too high,” McCoy said calmly. “I need to lower it, okay?” 

Jim nodded tiredly, closing his eyes again. “Go for it.” McCoy winced at the apathy, uncomfortable with a Jim who didn’t fight every treatment tooth and nail, with a Jim who was scarcely moving or speaking instead of moving a mile a minute. 

He cracked the cold packs, feeling them chill instantly in his hands. He wrapped them in cloth to minimize the shock to Jim’s body and carefully placed them, at his neck, his groin, the arteries of his arms. Jim flinched and drew back, opening his eyes to frown at McCoy. “That’s cold.” 

“That’s the idea,” McCoy said dryly. Jim was already beginning to shiver, but the temperature on the screen was dropping, albeit slowly. The blood machine chirped and McCoy spun around to read the screen, then dropped into a chair, slumping over, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. This was the part of medicine that he hated, the waiting, the archaic need to let the infection get worse so they could find it. There obviously was an infection, very clearly something was going on, and yet for some reason, none of his equipment seemed able to confirm what he knew without a doubt. 

“What if it hadn’t worked?” The question was so soft that McCoy almost missed it. 

“What hadn’t worked?” 

“Catching up with Nero. The warp core. All of it.” 

“Don’t tell me you’re having doubts now.” 

“No.” Jim sighed. “It worked. I’m just thinking what would have happened if it hadn’t. Earth would have ended up like Vulcan.” At McCoy’s nod, he continued. “Spock, the old Spock, he told me I was a great man, in that other time. Nero told me I was in Earth’s history. He’d heard of me. Do you know how much that is to live up to?” 

“You’ve already made it,” McCoy said, and Jim frowned, confused. “Jim, you saved the entire planet today. Billions of people. You’re in Earth’s history. Everyone will know your name.” 

“And what if that’s all I ever am? If I never do anything else?” 

“That won’t happen,” McCoy scoffed. 

“They’re going to take the ship from me, Bones. I’ll be lucky not to go to jail.” 

“Bullshit.” Jim’s eyes widened in surprise. “Jim, you saved the whole goddamned planet. Who in the hell do you think is going to overlook that to throw you in jail?” At Jim’s silence, he continued. “If this was all you ever did, you’ve more than lived up to your father’s legacy. You did more than Pike ever expected you to do. But it’s not all you’re going to do. So stop worrying, and just rest, okay?” 

“It’s not just that,” Jim said, and he stopped meeting McCoy’s eyes. “I’m not afraid that I’ll never do anything else if it means I’m on Earth in a cell or just working in engineering. I’m afraid I’ll never do anything else as Captain. That everyone will expect me to have the answers and save everyone and Bones, I don’t know how. Today shouldn’t have happened, and if you don’t believe me, I’m sure Spock can give you the exact odds. This is what I can’t live up to.” 

McCoy thought. He thought for so long that Jim had almost fallen into a fitful slumber, waiting for him to respond. He thought of how, as far as he knew, Jim had not depended on anyone since he was a small child. He thought of how Jim, despite the appearance of irresponsibility, took all responsibility on himself. He thought of Vulcan and Jim’s guilt and emotional transference and realized that the guilt might not just be from the transference. He thought of Jim’s fear of failure, of how egos as huge as Jim’s were always paper-thin, so that he might sail over the insecurities and the fears and the doubts, but when he wasn’t moving a thousand miles per hour, he knew Jim could feel himself sinking. He thought and pondered and finally he spoke. 

“Tell me who would be better.” 

Jim started and winced. With a glance up at the screen, McCoy stood and began to remove the icepacks before lightly draping a blanket over Jim once more. “Tell me. Who would do a better job than you?” 

“Spock,” Jim offered. 

“If we had gone with Spock’s plan, we would have died and Earth would be as gone as Vulcan. Tell me. Who?” 

“Pike.” 

“Believes in you and thought Starfleet needed you even when they already had him. Come on, Jim. If you can’t do this, then who can?“ 

Jim shook his head. “I don’t know.” 

“No one. Jim, even in an alternate reality where none of this happened, you were a great man. It’s normal to have doubts, but you’ve got to see that there’s no one else better. Maybe no one else as good.” 

Jim blinked rapidly, staring at the ceiling. “You think too much of me, Bones.” 

“Or you don’t think enough. Or too much. Jesus, if I stroke your ego much more, you really will be unbearable,” McCoy groused and Jim caught his eyes and slowly smiled. “Now go to sleep, okay? I’m not kidding.” 

Jim nodded, smile slowly slipping as he relaxed, even the sounds of sickbay not enough to keep him awake at this point. And when his breathing finally evened out, McCoy let out a sigh. 

He picked up his tricorder and scanned Jim once more, to no avail. But the fever was climbing again and Jim was white as the sheets on which he lay. McCoy thought of all the nights that led up to this one, all the drunken admissions Jim had made only to deny the next day, all the bar fights he was in and the times he didn’t sleep, the times he found his way back to their dorm late at night cold and shaking, unable to tell McCoy what had happened. He thought of how far Jim had come in just a few days, of admitting his fears and reservations. And yet it wasn’t enough because he knew that the issue was more complicated, that Jim wasn’t telling the whole story, that no matter how deep he dug, there would always be more. 

“Bones,” Jim mumbled as he stirred. 

“Yeah, kid?” McCoy was at his side instantly, one hand on Jim’s shoulder to assure him of proximity. 

“Is it supposed to hurt this bad?” His teeth were clenched, hands fisted in the blanket, eyes still closed. 

“What, Jim? What hurts?” he asked urgently. 

“My stomach,” Jim gritted out. “I thought it was just because of the surgery, but, Bones, it hurts.” 

McCoy drew back the blanket and gently raised Jim’s shirt, feeling the rigidity of his abdomen, the heat of it, and his tricorder beeped the report almost as soon as he picked it up. And he stared at the display, realizing how obvious it was, how Jim had told him earlier exactly where the problem was and he had written it off as postoperative pain, forgetting that Jim had a pain tolerance so high it was almost annoying. 

“What’s wrong?” Jim demanded, reading McCoy’s face in an instant. 

“Peritonitis. You have peritonitis,” McCoy intoned hollowly, sinking into his chair once more. 

“What?” 

“The membrane around your organs. It’s infected.” He could see all the books in his mind’s eye, all the diagrams, dissections, the surgeries, the inflammation that came with peritonitis, the pain of it, and he immediately reached for another dose of the only painkiller he was sure Jim wasn’t allergic to, pressing the hypo to Jim’s neck without really seeing it. 

Distantly, he noticed Jim relax a little as the pain ebbed, noted how Jim’s eyes followed him as he stood up and pushed the curtain aside, walking into the office and closing the door, sliding down to sit on the floor just behind it. 

Antibiotics. The treatment for peritonitis was antibiotics. Without them, Jim would likely die. Painfully. He’d die of sepsis, of infection in his blood, spreading through to every single cell, setting every nerve on fire. 

Allergies. The very reason he hadn’t given antibiotics in the first place. Because Jim was allergic to almost everything. Because there were no safe medications that were strong enough. With them, Jim would likely die. Painfully. If he gave antibiotics now, if Jim was allergic, his throat would close, his veins would burn, his heart would pound and then it would stop, his blood pressure would plummet and he would lose consciousness and he wouldn’t gain it again because his body was already so weakened. 

Damned if he did, damned if he didn’t. Jim Kirk really was going to die. The only choice left was if McCoy was going to pull the trigger or let it go off on its own. A distinction without a difference. A real no-win scenario.


	8. Chapter Eight

The first time McCoy met Jim, on the shuttle to the Academy, it took him almost half an hour to stop hyperventilating long enough to ask the kid talking him down what exactly had happened to his face. The kid had shrugged and said “bar fight,” with a cheeky grin across the aisle at a large man with bruises knuckles that McCoy assumed to be at least one other component in the bar fight equation. 

The second time McCoy met Jim, Jim was just as bruised as before, but this time he limped. Raising his eyebrows, McCoy had asked if it was another bar fight, to which Jim had responded something about a training exercise and kept limping doggedly onward. 

The third time McCoy met Jim, he was confused and disoriented and he had a laceration his scalp that was dripping blood on the carpet of the hallway outside of McCoy’s room. He said something about a roommate, alcohol, and a replicator incident before McCoy pulled him inside. He sat Jim on the edge of his bed, using some gauze to staunch the flow of blood as his own roommate looked on curiously from his desk. By the time McCoy had used the dermal regenerator and wiped up most of the blood, Jim was sound asleep in McCoy’s bed and McCoy’s roommate had excused himself to hang out with his girlfriend, leaving McCoy essentially alone except for this kid who had somehow thought it was acceptable both to track down a man he’d only met twice and then to sleep in said stranger’s bed. 

He was gone when McCoy woke up in his desk chair, but there was a certain closeness borne of having your bed stolen, McCoy supposed, and Jim had assumed their friendship from then on. They moved in together in their second year. 

He thought of all the times he had patched Jim up, all the times Jim sneezed, bled, or threw up on him, all the times Jim had nightmares he wouldn’t talk about, but just sat shivering in McCoy’s room while they quietly sipped coffee, all the times he had been there to save the day and then he thought of today, the one day he couldn’t. He thought of Jim slowly but steadily dragging his grades up in classes like astrophysics, classes for which doctors had absolutely no use. He thought of Jim taking him out each year on his daughter’s birthday, getting him so wasted that he could almost forget that he had been pushed out of her life, and listening to him ramble about his daughter when he could no longer forget. 

McCoy was uncertain why he was remembering all of this now, still sitting in a daze on the floor of his office. He thought of the beginning of their friendship and he thought about the end. He thought of leaving his office, of telling Jim what was happening, of letting Jim make a call because Jim could always make the hard decisions. And he thought of all the hard decision Jim had made, all the difficult things he had done, and he decided not to tell Jim anything. 

He stood up, brushed off his regulation pants and straightened his shirt. He picked up a PADD off his desk and squared his shoulders, taking a deep breath before he walked out of his office. Blue eyes watched him impassively as he came back over to Jim’s bedside. 

“How’s the pain?” he asked evenly. 

“Where did you go?” Jim asked softly. 

“Get my PADD,” McCoy said gruffly, lifting it slightly. Jim’s eyes drifted over to the PADD lying conspicuously on the medical cart within arm’s reach of the bed, before returning to McCoy’s face. McCoy cleared his throat and tried to divert Jim’s attention. “Are you in pain?”

“I don’t need any more meds,” Jim said tiredly, letting his eyes drift closed. 

“That’s not what I asked.” 

“It’s fine.” 

“Jim…”

“It hurts, okay? It hurts,” Jim snapped, opening his eyes to glare fiercely at McCoy. “Is that what you want to hear?”

“Of course not,” McCoy murmured, reaching for another hypo of Jim’s pain medication. 

“I don’t want that,” Jim said, turning his gaze to the ceiling. 

“Jim, what’s wrong?” He sat down in the chair by the bed, looking intently at Jim who carefully did not make eye contact. 

“Why are you lying to me?” 

McCoy fumbled for an answer for a long moment, wanting to tell Jim about sparing him the hard decisions, wanting to protect him from at least one more thing, before he finally caved. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.” He put his head in his hands. 

“Bones.” 

He looked up and met Jim’s gaze, flinching at the determined resignation there, realizing an instant before Jim said it what he wanted. 

“Promise me you will get everyone back safe,” Jim said quietly. 

“Jim, you’re not dying,” he said weakly. 

“Bones, please. Promise me. I just need to know that they’ll be okay.” 

“You’re not dying,” McCoy said again, no more convincingly. He looked at the space between his hand and Jim’s, the inch of crisp white sheet showing, and he thought of the unbridgeable gap between life and death. 

“And tell my brother –” 

“Dammit, Jim, you’re not dying!” McCoy burst out, leaping to his feet so abruptly he heard his chair topple, distantly, behind the pounding of blood in his ears, the roar of his thoughts, beneath the current of pure, agonizing adrenaline surging through his veins. He stared down at Jim, the edges of his vision dark as he honed in on Jim’s face, on that self-sacrificing bastard who would give himself up in an instant without thinking of who he hurt in the process. 

“Doctor, if I may have a word.” The roar of his blood settled to a low hum in his ears as he looked across Jim’s bed at Spock, standing as poised and calm as ever, face betraying nothing. 

McCoy nodded shortly, snagged a hypo off the cart and pressed it to Jim’s neck in one fluid motion, giving Jim the comfort he didn’t want, before turning on his heel to walk into his office, scarcely listening for Spock’s steps to follow. 

He walked behind his desk but didn’t turn around, studying the blank wall intently, long after he heard Spock close the door gently behind them. However, after what McCoy deemed to be an entirely too long silence, he was finally forced to turn, if only to ask, “Can I help you?” 

“I came to sickbay to visit with the captain,” Spock began. “However, based on your emotional outburst a few moments ago, I sense I may not understand the full extent of the current situation.” 

McCoy took long, slow breaths through his nose, eyes closed until he felt he could say the words without the emotion they warranted. “Jim is dying,” he said, voice shockingly hoarse. 

Spock frowned. “I’m afraid I do not understand.” 

“He’s sick. Peritonitis. From the surgery.” Jim’s illness was his fault, he realized suddenly. If he had not operated, if he had found antibiotics, or somehow made sure the room was cleaner, he would not have an infection. 

“It is not your fault,” Spock said plainly, and McCoy shook his head, wondering when it was Spock began to understand human emotions well enough to read him. 

“I haven’t told him,” McCoy muttered, sitting down at the desk and tapping on his PADD as though he was doing something, even though he wasn’t. “I can’t.” 

Spock thought for a long moment. “From my understanding of the conversation that transpired a few moments ago, there is no need to tell the captain that which he already knows.” 

“He’d make a decision and no matter what it is, it would be the wrong one,” McCoy said, purposely ignoring Spock’s statement. 

“There is a decision to be made?” Spock raised his eyebrows. “My understanding was that the captain’s death was inevitable?” 

“The treatment for peritonitis is antibiotics and he’s probably allergic,” McCoy said flatly. “Without them, he’ll probably die.” He covered his face with his hands, unwilling and unable to continue looking Spock in the eye. 

“Doctor.” 

“What?” 

“What is the probability of fatality of peritonitis without treatment?” 

“Almost a hundred percent.” 

“I need a number, Doctor.” 

“Ninety-five percent,” McCoy snapped, frustrated. 

“What is the probability that the captain is allergic to the treatment?” 

“Probably about ninety-nine percent,” McCoy said. “And the probability he would die from a reaction is probably ninety-five.” 

“Then you must administer the antibiotics at once,” Spock concluded. “The probability of the captain’s death with treatment is ninety-four point zero five percent, as compared to ninety-five percent without treatment.” 

“Not everything is numbers, Spock!” 

“Neither is everything purely emotion, Doctor,” Spock countered. 

“He’s not a math problem, he’s a damn human being,” McCoy exclaimed, voice rising. “I can’t just give him a life-threatening treatment because your numbers say so!” 

“So you would refuse him treatment because your emotions say so?” Spock queried calmly. At McCoy’s silence, he continued. “It is not as simple as an equation, perhaps, but neither is it as complicated as your emotional state leads you to believe.” 

“I’m a doctor, not a mathematician,” McCoy groused. 

“And is it not a doctor’s responsibility to offer his patients the best chance at survival. Would you allow your fear to diminish the captain’s chance of survival, if even by a single percent?”

McCoy glared at Spock, who looked back impassively, eyebrows only slightly raised, waiting for his response. After a long moment, McCoy broke the eye contact, looking down at his desk as he pushed himself up. 

“God damn it, you damn green-blooded, robotic son of a bitch,” he grumbled, though both he and Spock could hear the lack of conviction and the scarcely-shielded gratitude behind his words. 

He strode past Spock, jerking the door open and stomping back to Jim’s bed where he began pulling supplies out of the drawers of the medical cart and setting them out along the top. When he had everything he thought he could even possibly need, he turned to Jim, meeting eyes bright with fever. He pushed Jim’s hair back from his forehead with one hand and covered Jim’s hand with his other, while Spock stood quietly on the other side of the bed, out of the way. 

“We’re going to try something, okay? You’re really sick and if I don’t do anything, there’s a good chance that you’re going to die.” He watched Jim nod, feeling a lump in his throat as a tiny flicker of fear appeared in Jim’s eyes only to be pushed back down behind that hazy determination. “The treatment is dangerous, Jim. You’re probably allergic. This isn’t going to be fun.” 

“Hypos are never fun,” Jim whispered and almost smiled. 

“Don’t be such an infant,” McCoy said kindly. But then, seriously, he said, “Jim, I’m going to do everything I can. And you are not going to die. You hear me? You survived a goddamn black hole today, so if you even think of dying of something as asinine as a fucking allergic reaction, I promise you, I will keep you alive just so I can kill you myself. Got it?” 

“Bones, you should teach a class on scaring your patients into living. Therapeutic threatening 101,” Jim said tiredly, but he smiled. 

“Nah, I’m patenting this technique,” Bones said easily. “You ready?” 

“Guess so,” Jim said, closing his eyes. 

McCoy picked up the hypo. “Stop tensing your neck like that. That’s why hypos hurt, you know.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Jim mumbled. “Love you, Bones,” he whispered, so quietly McCoy almost missed it. 

“You too, kid,” he whispered back as he pressed the hypo to Jim’s neck. 

Within two minutes, Jim was wheezing, the site of the injection turning red and swelling, and he was gasping for breath, coughing roughly, hand at his throat where he could not breathe, the biobed alarm was screaming as his blood pressure bottomed out, and McCoy was scrambling for all the things he had set out, fumbling for a hypo and instead knocking it to the ground as the alarm intensified in the shrill screech of a flat line as Jim Kirk’s heart stopped beating.


	9. Chapter Nine

Jim lay unconscious, flat on his back as McCoy lowered the head of the biobed, tossed the pillow to the floor and palmed the laryngoscope in one fluid motion. He administered two hypos as he tipped Jim’s head back, every move mechanical and precise, so practiced and thorough that he didn’t waste even a fraction of a second. Studiously avoiding looking at Jim’s face, he used the scope to visualize the glottis, to thread the tube down just before the pharynx collapsed. The epinephrine had Jim’s heart going again, the bleating of the machine a little irregular and the line traces a little weak, but it was functioning, enough to push the blood around, and that was just enough. 

As Jim’s chest rose and fell slowly, the hum of the machine replacing the sound of breaths, Spock stepped forward from whatever periphery he had slipped to in the scramble to save Jim’s life. He held out Jim’s pillow, one hand clenching it by the corner so tightly that his knuckles matched the case. McCoy took it from him, setting it on the cart and ordering the nurse to find a clean one, avoiding Spock’s gaze because they both knew what they had done. 

Spock stood across the bed from McCoy, and from a closeness borne of one too many close calls in far too short a time, McCoy saw that his impeccable posture was a little too tense, his lips pressed together a little too tightly, his eyes so forcibly blank that McCoy could see right through them to the guilt he knew was mirrored in his own. 

Jim awoke within half an hour, and McCoy might have missed it had he not been staring unblinkingly at Jim from the moment he let the machine take over. His cough, the gag reflex induced by the tube down his throat, was so weak McCoy saw it rather than heard it, in the hesitant contraction of the neck muscles, in the pain in Jim’s eyes. Jim made no move to remove the tube himself, though reflex should have dictated just that – he had been through this enough to rewrite instinct. 

An hour later, Jim lay curled on his side, clutching an oxygen mask like a security blanket. He didn’t need it anymore, not in the strictest sense, but McCoy would not deny him any comfort at this moment. He was afraid of the sensation of suffocating, of the lungs heaving for air and coming up empty, the pressure inside increasing as the blood turned acidic, the numbness and the fear, the way the time slowed down as the brain processed slower so that every second felt infinite, an infinite moment of dying. Jim clutched the oxygen mask to his chest, and every so often, with an amount of effort that made McCoy cringe, dragged it up to his mouth for a few ragged breaths, eyes fluttering closed as the mask fogged with assurance that he was alive. 

McCoy could still hear the shouts echo through sick bay, his call for a code, for hypos and equipment, intermingled with assurances to someone who couldn’t hear him and curses he was glad Jim could not hear. He listened to the rough whisper of Jim’s breath, to the dead silence of three men who had thrown experience out the window, long surpassed knowledge, and had finally outstripped luck. McCoy listened to Spock’s silence, to the lack of logic or rationality, to the lack of leadership from the most knowledgeable of all of them. He listened to the silence Jim should have been filling with some kind of absurd plan, because James T. Kirk always had some bullshit plan with exactly zero percent chance of working, and yet it always worked anyhow because no-win scenarios did not dare touch him. 

But instead, Jim stared at McCoy in unanswered question, as McCoy stared back, at such a loss that he could do nothing to hide it. Jim coughed weakly into the mask, his shoulders twitching less than an inch before he forced himself still. 

He listened to all this silence, to the fact that everyone in sickbay knew that this was a battle without a victor, a fight in the no-man’s land between defeat and death. And in this moment, McCoy realized that if Jim Kirk would not come up with the most improbable plan, then he must do it himself. 

He picked up his PADD and began to search, generally then specifically, in a state of forced calm that eventually morphed into a state of panicked desperation. Antibiotics. The particular breed of bacteria that had taken over Jim’s insides. Peritonitis. Immune response. 

Typically, for peritonitis, he'd give a cocktail of antibiotics. But he could scarcely risk one drug, let alone several. There had to be something, some drug that could do it all. 

There was one study, just one. The results were not in triplicate, as they should have been. No one had ever repeated their results, as they should have done. There was little reason to think this one study touting this one antibiotic should be valued at all except that it was the only study that gave even a glimmer of a chance. A cursory search into the backgrounds of each researcher said that none of them had any personal stake in the antibiotic – they must believe it worked and that was good enough for McCoy. He looked it up in the catalog to see if he would have to synthesize it himself, only to find that Dr. Puri kept it in stock. Every doctor had his own preferences. 

He looked up the structure and pharmacology of this antibiotic, this chemical he was about to pour into Jim’s body without knowing a thing about it. He looked at related drugs and his heart sank as he realized that every medication on this list was something to which Jim was allergic. Every single one. 

He sighed and looked up, meeting Jim’s eyes once more over the cradle of the oxygen mask, eyes that had moved from looking exhausted and resigned to curious and just the tiniest bit hopeful and he knew he could not let Jim down. Not again. 

He returned to his research. Immune response. There had to be a way to make this drug work. There was always a way, he decided, even though every bit of experience he had gained in his career told him otherwise. For Jim, he amended, there would always be a way. 

He skimmed the titles of hundreds of papers before one finally caught his eye. It was a little strange, a little old, but it was something and that was all he needed to act. 

McCoy pushed himself out of his chair, wondering idly how long, exactly, he had been sitting there in what Jim called his study mode – that same position he always sat in to read the PADD. He found the supply closet and rummaged through the chaotic remains of what had been an organized closet to find what he needed. 

He returned to Jim’s bedside and laid out his supplies on the cart, before kneeling so that he was at Jim’s eye level. He brushed the soft blond hair back from Jim’s face as he spoke, feeling that Jim’s fever was once again climbing. He was aware of Spock’s eyes upon him as he lowered his voice to speak to Jim. 

“I have an idea. It’s basically unheard of, extremely dangerous, and not likely to be terribly fun, but there’s a chance and that’s about all we have right now,” he said, forcing his voice to maintain the soothing tone forced upon him in medical school under the guise of “bedside manner.” 

“You sound like me,” Jim rasped and tried for a smile, though it was more of a grimace. 

McCoy forced a smile back at him. “Just so you know, you might throw up on me.” 

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Jim murmured. “So what’s the plan?” 

“Immunoglobin E is the type of antibody that is responsible for allergies,” McCoy began. “Basically it connects with these things called mast cells, and then when it encounters something you’re allergic to, the mast cells release a mess of chemicals that cause your allergic reaction. The closing of the throat and all of that.” 

Jim nodded at him and McCoy remembered that the kid had read over his shoulder enough times that he probably knew all of this already. Spock continued looking on with interest, raising one eyebrow in that infernal expression McCoy could not quite decipher. 

“I found an antibiotic that might work. But you’re going to be allergic. There’s no doubt about it, because you’re allergic to everything in its family,” McCoy began. “So I’m going to give it to you orally. A little bit at a time, every twenty minutes.” 

Jim frowned at him but McCoy persisted. “The idea is to bind all of your IgE, but to do it slowly, so that when that whole mess of chemicals gets released, it only gets released a little at a time, and your body can adjust. And then we can give you more and it can start doing what it is supposed to do, because all of your IgE is already occupied.” 

“Ouch,” Jim said, and McCoy nodded sympathetically. 

“It’s not going to be pleasant,” he said. “And I’m sorry. You know if there was any other way, I’d take it.” 

Jim nodded. “Do it.” 

McCoy nodded and stood up, preparing the first dose of the antibiotic, before setting it aside and looking to Spock. “Help me,” he murmured and Spock seemed to know what to do. 

Gently, they helped Jim turn over, to lie on his back once more, and after giving him a moment to catch his breath, McCoy raised the head of the bed so that Jim was halfway sitting up. Spock’s long fingers delicately followed the line of the IV, untangling it from the oxygen mask. He carefully pulled Jim’s blankets higher as he trembled, before carefully placing the oxygen mask back in Jim’s good hand and placing that hand on his chest so that he might put the mask to his face a little easier. 

McCoy helped Jim sip the syrup of the antibiotic, cringing as Jim coughed and gagged weakly. He held up a glass of water and Jim took a small gulp, but quickly pressed his lips together in obvious discomfort. Silently, McCoy thumbed the switch to turn up the rate of pain medication flowing through the IV. 

Jim looked up at Spock a couple of times, enough for Spock to courteously excuse himself, and McCoy and Jim were left alone. As alone as they could be in a full sickbay where half the occupants looked on in unchecked curiosity. 

“How’s it feeling?” McCoy asked. “Tell me the truth.” 

Jim pondered for a moment. “Not as bad as you said,” he concluded, finally. But they both knew it was only the first dose. 

In a quarter hour, it was time for a new dose, and Jim gagged once again, but sipped some water and persisted in stone-faced determinacy. 

Twenty minutes later, McCoy gave Jim the third dose, though Jim’s obstinate expression was quickly waning. He moved to curl up again, and McCoy helped him turn on his side, where he clutched his stomach and clenched his teeth. McCoy sat on the edge of the bed behind Jim, rubbing his back gently. 

“We can stop,” he whispered. “If you want. We can stop, if this isn’t what you want.” He heard the words almost as he thought them, speaking them before he realized. He heard the knot in his throat a split second before he felt it, as he felt the words and their implications. The implications that Jim could tell him to stop. The realization that he was giving Jim the option to die. The understanding that if Jim said to stop, McCoy would. He would stop, and he would hold Jim and stroke his hair, if that’s what he wanted. That he would step back and say nothing, if that’s what Jim wanted. The knowledge that he would do whatever Jim wanted because it could be the last thing Jim would ever want. 

“How many more?” Jim asked, voice hoarse and barely there, and McCoy heard what wasn’t there – that Jim had not said “no.” He was glad Jim faced away from him, that Jim could not see the look on his face, that he did not have to meet his eyes. 

“Two, maybe three more doses. Then the IV. It shouldn’t be any worse than this, and after a little while, it should get better,” he said, voice rough around the lump in his throat. He could feel Jim’s ribs shift with each shuddering breath in the infinite silence that followed, an endless number of aspirations as Jim considered and a miniscule number of aspirations as McCoy held his breath. 

“Okay,” Jim said finally, simply, as though he was asked if he wanted another pillow rather than if he wanted his life to end. McCoy let out the breath he had been holding and Jim made the huge effort to look over his shoulder at him and almost smiled at McCoy’s relief, almost as if it was unexpected. 

“Damn it, Jim,” McCoy said and Jim smiled full out. “It’s time for your next dose.”


	10. Chapter Ten

There are not enough words for pain. The words available to describe the way pain feels are almost always related to what is causing the pain. Stabbing. Burning. Searing. Pounding. But when nothing was stabbing or burning, there were far fewer ways to describe a pain that might be even more treacherous. 

The pain Jim was experiencing was not any of those. It was an all-encompassing pain that morphed as it traveled so that the pain in his abdomen felt nothing like the pain in his throat or the pain in his head or the pain in his chest. 

If someone lined up razorblades, so that the whisper-thin edge of each blade was sandwiched between the edge of the blades around it, a million times over, in a huge sheet, a huge sheet of knife edges just far enough apart that each one could slice into his skin individually, if this sheet was applied to the inside of his body, pressed up against every organ and the walls of his muscles, that would be akin to the pain of peritonitis. An infinite series of razor slashes every time his muscles moved a single millimeter, with every breath he took and even when he refused to breathe at all. 

His mouth and throat were different. The syrup lightly coated everything and blood rose to the surface to meet it, stretching the membranes tight until he was sure his skin would tear. He felt around with his tongue at the swelling, the heat and anger of a reaction. 

His head was heavy and the far over-worked muscles of his neck could no longer support it. He felt the weight of it behind his eyes, pressing outwards, his vision brightening with each contraction of his heart and fading with each relaxation. 

His chest worked overtime trying not to move his abdomen as he breathed, and the muscles were exhausted, stretching and contracting and not stretching quite as far again, his own ribs strangling him. 

Jim wanted Bones to make it stop hurting, but he knew there was nothing to be done. He had seen Bones turn up his medication three times, and reach to turn it up a fourth, only to hesitate and draw his hand back. Through the haze of his vision that still throbbed with his heartbeat, he could see the conflict on Bones’ face and he had told Bones that it was okay, it didn’t hurt. 

But it did. It hurt more than he could have imagined and it hurt in ways he didn’t know were possible, and he had been unprepared. He was exhausted just trying not to make it any worse and yet each time he closed his eyes, he was left with no stimuli but the pain and somehow it grew to fill that void. So he forced his eyelids open once more and stared at Bones, wondering how in the world he was going to live through the next dose. 

Bones said something he didn’t catch and he started to ask but it that would require a deeper breath and he just couldn’t do that so he let it go, watching his short exhalation fog the mask Bones had slipped back over his face as Jim’s respiration rate dropped precipitously. Bones held up his tricorder, tapping several buttons to alter the readout, and then he hovered it over Jim, waiting for the readout. The tricorder chirped and Bones retracted it, but reached out and brushed his fingers over Jim’s forehead, checking once more for fever. Jim leaned into Bones’ hand just slightly, strangely grateful for the contact. He closed his eyes for a moment and immediately regretted it, opening them to see Bones beaming at him. 

“That’s it, Jim,” Bones exclaimed and Jim frowned at him, confused. “It looks like you don’t need that last dose after all. I’m going to hook up the IV.” He turned to hang up the bag, adjusting the lines meticulously. 

Jim frowned again, uncertain. Not forcing down any more of that syrup sounded fantastic but he could only imagine the feel of it in his veins. He started to ask, but Bones anticipated his question. 

“No. No, it won’t hurt,” Bones said, pushing the end of the plastic tubing into the port on Jim’s IV. “The worst of it is over.” He brushed Jim’s hair back and put his hand on Jim’s arm. 

“Even better, it looks like the infection is already starting to get better,” he said softly. “We’re not out of the woods yet, but I can see some sunlight.” 

Jim nodded slowly, studying Bones’ face, the obvious relief there and he realized he and Bones were not nearly as different as he thought. Because Jim had always been able to read between the lines, and between the relief and excitement in Bones’ voice, he heard what Bones had not said, that he had never believed this would work. 

Jim Kirk believed in long shots, in defeating the odds. From the moment of his birth, he had been defying the odds, and he kept up the pattern, to the point of daring the universe to challenge him. But in the back of his mind, he knew someday the universe would do just that, that someday the long shot would not come through, that the odds would win out. Every time he concocted another impossible plan, every time he put his full faith in something flimsy, he felt that impending doom, even as he set himself on a crash course with it and prayed he would somehow miss. 

But he had always assumed Bones was nothing like him. Bones was cautious, thoughtful, mature. He considered the consequences of his actions before enacting them, planned meticulously. Bones had patched Jim up after countless bar fights and several training incidents. He had headed off approximately twenty severe allergic reactions and probably a hundred minor ones. He had brought Jim back from near-deathly illness four times, because when Jim did something, he did it all the way. And never once, in all of these interactions, had Jim ever had any kind of inkling that Bones might not come through, that Bones’ ability to counteract the consequences of his antics might not be absolute. Jim would bet on a long shot any day, but he had never thought Bones would be one of them. 

“Bones,” he mumbled, barely audible through the mask. 

“Jim?” 

“How close?” It was so much effort to force out the first two words that he left it there and trusted Bones to divine his meaning. Bones paused, clearly considering, in the way he always did when Jim decided to check just how disproportionate his ego really was. 

“In less than two days, you died three times,” Bones finally said, not meeting Jim’s eyes. “You’ve had some close calls, Jim, but this was the closest. At least as far as I know.” 

“I’m sorry,” Jim whispered because he knew the lines forming on Bones’ forehead were his fault, because he knew sometimes he was the reason Bones drank and the reason, at least half the time, that he was woken up in the middle of the night. 

“Jim, listen to me,” Bones said, leaning in and speaking slowly. Jim blinked, a little taken aback. “You are reckless and brilliant and a little insane and that frustrates me to no end. But that doesn’t mean that I won’t patch you up or that you don’t deserve for me to patch you up. I’m always going to be here. Always.” 

Jim blinked rapidly, and broke eye contact, staring at a point on the wall behind Bones’ left shoulder until everything stopped swimming. “Thank you,” he said finally, when he thought he could manage it. 

“Yeah,” Bones said gruffly, just as uncomfortable as Jim was at the unusual display of affection. “Just don’t make it a habit.” 

Jim smiled at Bones’ attempt at normalcy and Bones scowled. 

“You need to sleep. Do you want me to give you something to help?” 

Jim considered, and while he was considering, Bones pressed the hypo against his neck. 

“If you have to think about if you need a hypo, you need a hypo,” he said over Jim’s protests. 

“You just like drugging me,” Jim mumbled as the drugs took effect, as his eyes dropped closed and he was surprised to find the pain not growing in the void but receding, and for a brief moment, he stopped questioning long shots.

After a full six days, McCoy was finally starting to believe that Jim might be ready to be released from sick bay. Not back to work or even out of bed, but into his own quarters, at least. He could tell this from the lack of fever, lack of bacterial colonies in Jim’s peritoneum, the lack of symptoms, and the presence of all the annoying behaviors Jim exhibited when he was tired of lying down. 

The IV was gone; Jim was eating again, albeit not a lot. It took two days for him to be able to hold anything down and even after that, he was cautious. He was still a little weak and the couple of times he had attempted to sneak out of bed to snag a communicator had not been successful – the first had resulted in McCoy having to pick Jim up off the floor. 

Spock had visited every day, filling both of them in on the repairs to the Enterprise and the antics of Scotty. Jim would snicker, then groan at the lingering pain of moving his abdomen, and Spock would draw those absurd eyebrows together in concern. After a couple days, McCoy had mentioned to Spock that Jim enjoyed chess, and from then on, Spock brought a board with him and for a few hours a day, Jim quit asking to leave. 

But aside from the few hours of chess and the long hours of sleeping, Jim was a constant source of annoyance to McCoy. Each and every time McCoy moved past his bed, which was frequently since Jim’s bed was just outside of McCoy’s office, Jim asked when he could leave. 

“Just what is it you think you’re going to do when you leave here?” McCoy finally demanded gruffly. 

“To my chair?” Jim said meekly, quelling a little under McCoy’s annoyed glare. 

“Uh-uh,” McCoy grunted. “Not for at least another few days, not until you pass a full physical.” 

“Bones,” Jim whined, but McCoy cut him off. 

“No. Just how do you expect to get up there? I’m certainly not going to carry you.”

“I can walk,” Jim said indignantly. 

“Like hell,” McCoy retorted. Jim sank back against his pillow and sighed petulantly. 

“Bones, there’s so much to get done,” he said, trying to sound as though this was the most reasonable excuse in the world. “I won’t be able to once we get back to Earth…” he trailed off. 

“They won’t take the Enterprise from you,” McCoy said, sinking into the chair by Jim’s bed. “They can’t.” 

“You don’t know that,” Jim said darkly, eyes distant. 

“How are the dreams?” McCoy asked, and Jim started a little and met his eyes. 

“Fine,” he said, and anyone else would have believed it but McCoy wasn’t fooled. 

“Jim…” he intoned. “They aren’t going to go away just because you pretend they aren’t there.” 

“I can handle a couple of dreams, Bones,” Jim said tiredly. “Just a couple more to add to the list.” 

McCoy winced at the reminder. Jim had been through too much to be phased by anything anymore, or at least, he liked to think so. Enough that he never tolerated McCoy’s efforts to repair any kind of psychological trauma. 

As the pair glared at each other, McCoy frustrated beyond belief and Jim as stubborn as ever, someone cleared his throat. 

“Captain, I have information which I believe will be of interest to you,” he said. “The admiralty communicated this morning and, barring extenuating circumstance, they intend to heed Captain Pike’s recommendation that you retain captaincy of the Enterprise.” 

“What?” Jim said, momentarily stunned, and McCoy grinned, in spite of all that had transpired, because he rarely saw the genius actually surprised. 

“Which means,” McCoy added, forcing his face into a more severe expression, “that you are not going anywhere until I am confident you’re completely well. You’re damn well not going to go traipsing all over space until I’m sure you aren’t going to collapse while doing it. I don’t want to die on this tin can.” 

Jim leaned back against his pillows, interlacing his fingers behind his head in an exaggerated pose of total relaxation. “Bones, don’t call my ship a tin can. That’s an order.” 

“Order my ass,” McCoy muttered, waving a hypo threateningly. “You ungrateful little brat.” But even he couldn’t help smiling as Jim amended: 

“That’s Captain ungrateful little brat.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all folks!


End file.
